Jenny Lane pulled a coat round her thin shoulders.
“You going to stay here? He won’t be in yet, not until eleven o’clock, anyway, but if he does come, don’t go and tell him that you told me you were a cop. He’ll think I put you on to him. Anyway, I’ll be back in half an hour.”
Two minutes after Jenny Lane had let herself out of the house, Reeves followed her into the road, and found his reliable colleague waiting patiently a few yards away.
“Go after that kid and keep your eye on her, mate,” said Reeves. “She said she was going to a pub to get some supper. If she tries doing a bunk, bring her back here. She may go and try to warn her boy friend I’m here, and she mustn’t do that.”
“Can do,” replied the other promptly and set off after Jenny Lane.
Reeves went back into the house. He wanted to make sure that that picture was safe: whatever happened, he must have that picture. While he waited, he looked carefully through the remaining canvases and the portfolios, and took out one or two sketches which interested him. He wished that there were a telephone in the house: he wanted to report to Macdonald.
To pass the time, he sat down and wrote up his official report in his notebook, and by the time he had finished that Jenny Lane came back.
“I feel a different girl,” she said. “Sausage and chips and apple pudding—a real blow out. I got you another packet of gaspers.”
Reeves grinned. “Thanks. That was thoughtful of you. Glad you had a good supper.”
She yawned. “Life’s funny, isn’t it? I’ve never been treated to supper by a copper before. I’ve known some decent ones though. When in doubt, ask a policeman. I’m sleepy. I think I’ll go to bed. When he comes in, you can give him the same dope as you gave me—say you come from the Morning Mail office. You’ve got a nerve, haven’t you, telling whackers like that.”
“It wasn’t a whacker. It was true,” retorted Reeves. “I left the Morning Mail office at six-thirty and came straight here. It was your own idea that I’d come to fetch his drawings.”
“Well, I don’t care a damn anyway. I’m through. I’m going to clear out in the morning.” She yawned again. “Lord, I’m sleepy.”
“All right. Trot off to bed,” said Reeves. “Just tell me two things before you go, though. Is this drawing a portrait of Stort?”
“Yes, that’s him—just like him, too. He loves making self-portraits, as he calls them. Lord knows why. He’s no beauty chorus.”
“He’s no illusions on that score, anyway,” said Reeves, grinning at the uncompromising portrait. “Next, when he spends his evenings in town, does he go to any particular joint, or just roll round promiscuous like?”
“He’s an expert on pubs, I tell you straight. He says there isn’t a pub in the four-mile radius he doesn’t know. One place he’s always going to though is that café close to the Coliseum—a snack bar it is really, the Flamingo. A rum lot go there, actors and artists and press men and all the rest.”
“I know it,” said Reeves. “Well, you toddle off—and take a word of advice. Clear out of this and get a decent job You ought to have more sense than to live with a fellow like this.”
“A girl’s got to live, hasn’t she?”
“Call it living? I don’t.”
“Oh, I dunno. Thanks for my supper. Saved my life, that did.”
Jenny Lane went upstairs and Reeves shrugged his shoulders. In his policeman’s career he had seen many like her, and with the practical common sense which was his chief essential Reeves thought it a pity that any girl should be such a fool: he hated untidiness and squalor and what he called “muckery.”
He went outside again and found the sergeant.
“O.K.?” demanded the latter. “That girl was hungry—no mistake about that.”
“She’s not hungry now,” said Reeves. “Can you ’phone this message through to C.O. for me, and come back and tell me if there’s any further orders. I reckon I’d better stand by until Stort comes back here. Don’t want to miss him.”
“O.K. I’ll go along to our box—it’s only a few minutes’ run along the main road. Then I’ll come back here and report.”
Reeves went inside again and sat down to wait. His mind turned to supper. He could have done with sausages and chips himself… and beer. It was just after half-past nine. He sat and smoked, thinking over the case, musing over the drawings on the wall in front of him, and recalling the smudged-out frescoes on the walls of old Folliner’s drawing-room. He put together the odd pieces of evidence he had collected, together with all the details given in Macdonald’s report—a jig-saw pattern, in which the pieces could be dovetailed. At ten o’clock a cautious knock sounded at the front door. Reeves went and opened it.
“Better let me come in,” said the sergeant.
Reeves led him into the brightly lighted room and the sergeant’s eyes goggled as he saw the wall paintings. “Blimey!” he said, and then turned to Reeves very soberly.
“Sorry, mate, I’m afraid it’s no go. They picked Stort up off the live rail just outside the station. He must have got out of the train on the wrong side, and fallen on his head. Our chaps reported to C.O.”
“Damn!” said Reeves, and the other replied,
“Sorry, old chap, but it wasn’t your fault. You’re to get outside a meal and then report to the chap on duty at the corner of Hollyberry Hill.”
Reeves stood still, his face utterly despondent. He remembered saying to Miss Stanton, “I’ll promise you he doesn’t outwit me, madam.”
Reeves felt that he had been outwitted, all the same.
Chapter Thirteen
I
After Macdonald had left the studio, his search completed, he went back to Scotland Yard and heard the report of Detective Ward, who had been spending his day enquiring into the ownership of property in Hollyberry Hill, and also picking up any local gossip and general information. He had not neglected to have a pint at “the local,” and had actually been in the Hollyberry Tavern when Delaunier was acquiring such information as the topers of the neighbourhood could dispense. Ward, with his very large spectacles and rather stupid stare, sat on a stool in silence, ignored by the animated company. After Delaunier had gone, Ward asked for another pint, saying timidly:
“I gather you’ve been having some trouble around here.”
“Call it trouble if you like: plain murder’s the name of it,” replied the landlord.
Another voice put in: “All comes of a miser ’oarding his money like that. Asking for it, I says. Why didn’t ’e put it in War Savings, same’s anyone else.”
“And how do you know he was a miser?” demanded another voice. “There’s all this talk, and it seems to me it’s just rumour—baseless rumour. The poor old chap was always starving, I’m told. Who first put it round that he was a miser? I reckon they’ve got a lot to be responsible for.”
“That’s plain sense, that is,” volunteered another. “Now then, old friend,” turning to the landlord. “Who first told you old Folliner was a miser?”
The landlord looked somewhat nonplussed. “Who first told me?” he asked. “Well, I don’t know, I’m sure. A lot of people have said so. The old man was always known as a very hard old customer—drove a hard bargain. He was well off at one time, too. Old Jenks, who used to sweep the crossing up there before he went into the workhouse, old Jenks used to say he remembered Mr. Folliner in a top hat and tail coat once. Then he got shabbier and shabbier, until his soles nearly parted company with his uppers, and he gave up going out at all. Then look at his house, and the shocking state it’s in! Not been painted since the last war.”
Ward spoke timidly: “Doesn’t that prove that he was very poor—not of necessity a miser?”
The landlord scratched his head, and somebody else said: “I’ll tell you who started this miser talk: it was those fellows in the studio—not the ones w
ho’re there now, the ones who ran away when the bombing started.”
“Ar…r,” said the landlord, “that’s right, that is. That little chap with a foreign name. A rare one to talk, he was. I remember he said when it was quiet in the studio he could hear the chink of coins in the house when the old man counted them of an evening.”
“That’s a damned whopper, anyway,” put in someone else. “Do you expect anyone to believe a yarn like that?”
A gentle voice spoke next: the voice of a quiet old gentleman who sat in a corner by the fire. “Mr. Folliner was very old,” he said “very old; that’s the trouble. You’re all too young to remember. I’m seventy-five years old now. When I was a young man, Mr. Folliner lived in that same house…say fifty years ago.” The soft voice trailed off, but Ward moved over to the old man’s corner and spoke to him.
“I was interested in what you were saying, sir,” he said. “You really remember this neighbourhood fifty years ago?”
“Yes. Yes. I remember those days much better than I remember last week. Fifty years ago…1893, before the Jubilee…well, well. I was in my father’s business—he was a pharmaceutical chemist. Mr. Folliner got married, and he brought his bride to live in that house. He would have been aged forty or thereabouts, but he looked older. He was always a hard man. She was a young thing, very young, a beautiful girl. People talked. It was said she had been an actress—a terrible stigma in those days. I don’t know. My mother was interested in the poor young thing: she had a baby, and then she ran away and took the baby with her. There was a lot of talk at the time… Mr. Folliner had always been a harsh man, but after that he grew meaner and grimmer. He was said to care about nothing but money. That’s why it came to be said that he was a miser… talk grows, like a snowball.”
Ward leaned forward. “Wasn’t the wife ever heard of again, sir?—or the child? Was it a girl, or a boy?”
“It was a boy, my mother saw it. We never heard of the wife again, but one day some time before the last war, in 1913 I think, a very handsome young fellow came into my shop and asked if I knew the address of a Mr. Folliner… thirty years ago… it seems like yesterday. I was certain that young man was Mr. Folliner’s son, there was just a look of him…”
“Time, gentlemen, time!” cried the landlord.
Ward managed to step outside just behind the old man.
“I have enjoyed hearing you talk, sir,” he said. “I hope to see you again.”
“Any day: any day. I come in for my modest half-pint,” replied the old gentleman. He walked away, tapping the railings with his stick. Somebody nudged Ward’s arm.
“Poor old chap. He’s almost blind. Comes in here every day and toddles back round the corner all by himself.”
“Blind?” said Ward. “What a pity.”
“Ay. That’s a pitiful thing, that is,” replied the other.
II
After Macdonald had heard the full report of Ward’s researches, he had a quick supper and then went out to Hampstead again, and called on Mr. Lewis Verraby. Verraby was sitting in the same handsome panelled room, and he greeted Macdonald with effusion.
“Delighted to see you, Chief Inspector. Delighted. How goes your case?”
“We are still piecing information together, sir: the case is by no means complete. In the light of certain facts which have been established, I have come to give you an opportunity of reconsidering some of your own evidence.”
“My own evidence?” Verraby stared at Macdonald: tried indeed to stare the other man down. With heightened colour and bulging eyes Verraby enquired:
“May I ask precisely what you mean?”
“Yes, sir. You stated that when you entered Mr. Folliner’s house, you went upstairs, opened the bedroom door, and found the soldier, whom you arrested, already in the bedroom, at the bedside. I don’t think that statement is correct.”
“Indeed! Am I to understand, Chief Inspector, that you are accepting the word of the arrested man in preference to my own?”
“No, sir. In detection it is not word against word, but fact against fact, which is decisive. One of the first things done by my department on arrival at deceased’s house was to take photographs of the floor, in the entrance hall, on the stairs, and in the bedroom. Your own footmarks were easily identified. From these photographs we have evidence that you went up the stairs before Neil Folliner did. His footmarks are superimposed on your own.”
There was a dead silence. Verraby’s colour had faded, and his face was almost grey, but he still tried to bluster.
“Your reading of those photographs must be at fault, Chief Inspector.”
“No, sir. There is no possibility of mistake, but the final verdict on the photographs will not be mine. They will be put into court as evidence. In view of this—and other facts—I give you the opportunity of reconsidering your statement. You understand, however, that it is my duty to caution you that anything you say can be taken down in writing and used as evidence. You are not under any obligation to make a statement, but if you wish to make an explanation you now have the opportunity of doing so.”
“This,” cried Mr. Verraby, “is inconceivable! Do you mean to say that you are accusing me of murder?”
“No, sir. I am a detective and I am seeking evidence. I am perfectly willing to tell you some of the evidence collected by my department during the course of the day. It is known to us that you are the chief member of a syndicate which has been buying property in this neighbourhood. You—or your syndicate—own the houses comprising that block in Hollyberry Hill in which number 25 is situated—but you do not own number 25, though you have been trying to purchase it for some time.” Macdonald paused here, but Verraby said nothing. He simply stared. Macdonald continued: “You admitted, very frankly, yesterday evening that a financier whose capital is tied up in land which he can not develop is in a very embarrassing position. Further, I know that another syndicate would relieve you of your present difficulties if you could offer the entire block in Hollyberry Hill for sale—including number 25.”
“My God!” burst out the other, “and on grounds such as that you accuse me of murder?”
“No, sir. I have accused you of nothing. I have asked you for an explanation of a discrepancy in your evidence.”
Macdonald paused again, and then continued in exactly the same even voice:
“You, who know a little of police procedure, will understand very well that it is known how often your duty as a special constable took you past Mr. Folliner’s house: that you have inspected that house with something more than the attention required by your duty as a constable. Come, sir! Pull yourself together! I have asked you for an explanation.”
Mr. Verraby was deflated by this time: so completely deflated that he sat with his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking. Macdonald’s incisive voice in his last words was a measure of the disgust he felt with the man before him.
“All you say is true in substance, but it is utterly misleading,” groaned Mr. Verraby. “I am guiltless… you must believe that… I am the victim of circumstances. This appalling thing overwhelms me.”
“I have no time to waste, sir,” said Macdonald sharply. “Once again, I offer you a chance of restating your evidence, and I caution you that it will be inadvisable to make any statement which is not precisely in accordance with facts.”
Mr. Verraby sat up—he reminded Macdonald of a deflated frog. “The facts are almost entirely as I stated,” he said. “You can understand the difficulties of my position. It is quite true that I have been facing considerable financial embarrassment caused largely by the obstinacy and greed of Mr. Folliner.” At this juncture he caught Macdonald’s eye and changed his tone to one of pathos. “I was on duty as you know. I patrolled according to regulations, and as I repassed number 25 I saw that the front door was open.”
“Did you examine the front door of every house on yo
ur beat?” asked Macdonald, and Mr. Verraby hesitated. Then, with a gesture of hopelessness he spread out his hands.
“No, Chief Inspector—but put yourself in my place. That house was associated in my mind with my present troubles. It was becoming an obsession to me…”
Macdonald cut in here: “I should hardly use that expression to a jury,” he said. “It is better to state your facts simply. While you had not examined other houses on your beat, you turned your torch light on to the door of Mr. Folliner’s house and found it open.”
“Exactly. I was puzzled. I went indoors to investigate. The house was perfectly quiet. I went up the stairs—”
“You had been in the house to see Mr. Folliner on previous occasions?” Macdonald’s question was uttered in a voice which was more that of a statement than a question.
“Yes… yes. I had tried to reason with him. The light was on in the bedroom, I saw it under the door, as I told you. I opened the door… and I saw the old man lying there… dead. You cannot imagine the horror which possessed me… the fear in my mind. I foresaw what conclusions would be drawn… the danger I was in—I, who was innocent of any complicity, I, who had no knowledge of this dastardly deed—”
“If you confine yourself to facts we shall get on more quickly,” said Macdonald.
Verraby drew a long trembling sigh. His eye dwelt longingly on the whisky decanter, but he made no move towards it. “I can only tell you that I was bowled over—completely bowled over,” he said. “I felt that I must get away from this horror. I went out of the bedroom and closed the door, and just at that moment I heard sounds downstairs. I realised, in a flash, that the murderer was still in the house.”
Macdonald looked at the other with an expression very far removed from sympathy.
“You heard someone else entering the house,” he said. “It is not necessary for either of us to analyse your feelings at this juncture. Your subsequent behaviour was sufficiently enlightening.”
“You do me an injustice,” complained Mr. Verraby. “The one thought in my mind was ‘Here is the murderer. I must apprehend him.’ I hid behind a door in the landing and waited. The newcomer went into the bedroom—and the rest you know.” He leaned forward with his head in his hands, trembling, a wretched figure of a man.
Checkmate to Murder: A Second World War Mystery Page 17