Man in the Queue

by Robert Barnard

  The boy took in his card, and he waited in the outer office for perhaps three minutes before Mr. Ratcliffe came out and drew him in with a welcoming affability.

  “Well, Inspector,” he said, “how are you getting on? Do you know, you and dentists must be the most unhappy people in the world. No one sees you without remembering unpleasant things.”

  “I didn’t come to bother you,” Grant said. “I just happened to be round, and I thought you’d perhaps let me use your telephone to save me going to a post office.”

  “Oh, certainly,” said Ratcliffe. “Carry on. I’ll go.”

  “No, don’t go,” said Grant, “there’ll be nothing private. I only want to know whether they want me.”

  But no one wanted him. The scent in South London was weak, but the hounds were persevering and busy. And he hung up with a relief which was rather surprising when one considered the eager frame of mind in which he had set out from the Yard. Now he did not want an arrest until he had time to think things over for a bit. The nightmare of a Scotland Yard officer’s whole life is Wrongful Arrest. He turned to Ratcliffe, and allowed him to know that an arrest was imminent; they had located their man. Ratcliffe was complimentary, and in the middle of the compliments Grant said, “By the way, you didn’t tell me that your wife had intended sailing for New York the night after the murder.”

  Ratcliffe’s face, clear in the light of the window, was both blank and shocked. “I didn’t know,” he began, and then with a rush—“I didn’t think it was of any importance or I should have told you. She was too much upset to go, and in any case there was the inquest. She has a sister in New York, and was going over for a month just. It didn’t make any difference, did it? Not knowing, I mean? It had no bearing on the crime.”

  “Oh, no,” Grant said. “I found it out quite accidentally. It is of no consequence. Is your wife better?”

  “Yes, I think so. She has not been at home since the inquest. She is at Eastbourne with the other sister—the one you met, I think.”

  Still more puzzled, Grant made his way back to the Yard. He pressed the button on his desk and said to the man who answered it, “I want some one for special work. Is Simpson in?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Send him in.”

  A fair and freckled man of medium height arrived; he had the pleased, alert air of a terrier who is waiting for some one to throw a stone. To him Grant said:

  “At 54 Lemonora Road, Golder’s Green, live a Mr. and Mrs. Ratcliffe. I want to know what terms they are on—with each other, I mean. Also anything else you can learn about the household. The gossipier the better. I know all about his business, so you needn’t waste time on that. It’s his home affairs that I want to know about. You can use any method you like as long as you keep within the law. Report to me tonight whether you have got anything or not. Is Mullins in the Yard just now?” Yes, Simpson had seen him as he came up. “Well, send him to me.”

  Mullins was not freckled, and he looked rather like a verger. “Good morning, sir,” he said, and waited.

  “Good morning, Mullins. From now until further notice you are a pedlar. You make an excellent Italian, but I think perhaps you had better be British. It is less conspicuous. I’ll give you a chit to Clitheroe on Lowndes Street, and he will give you the kind of stock I want. Don’t sell more than you can help. And I don’t want you to come back here. Meet me in the alley by Clitheroe’s in an hour from now. Can you manage it in an hour?”

  “I think so, sir. Am I young or old?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Young to middle-aged. Grey-beards are too theatrical. Don’t overdo anything. Respectable enough to travel on a bus if need be.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Mullins, as though his instructions had been to post a letter.

  When Grant stumbled across him in the alley in Lowndes Street an hour later, he said, “You’re a wonder, Mullins—simply a wonder. I should never believe you had ever written a report in your life if I didn’t know first hand.” He looked appreciatively at the pedlar before him. It was incredible that that slightly drooping figure was one of the most promising men at the Yard. It is very seldom that the C.I.D. resort to disguise, but when they do they do it well. Mullins had the supreme touch—that faculty of looking as though he could not possibly be other than he was at the moment. His clothes, even, though obviously third hand, had not that uneasy fit that newly donned garments have. They lay to his shoulders as a much-worn garment does, however ill-fitting.

  “Like a trinket, sir?” said Mullins, the pedlar, opening the lid of his wicker tray. On the baize lining lay a collection of articles mostly of cheap Italian manufacture—paper-knives, painted wood ornaments of all sorts, useful and useless, papier-mâché bowls, stucco figures.

  “Good!” said Grant. He took from his pocket a thin thing wrapped in tissue paper. As he unrolled the paper he said, “I want you to go to 98 Brightling Crescent, off the Fulham Road, and find out if the woman who lives there has ever seen this before.” He laid a silver dagger with an enamelled handle down among the painted wood and the stucco. “Needless to say, it isn’t for sale. What’s the price of this?” he added, picking up an article.

  “Give that to a gentleman like you for one-and-ninepence,” said Mullins, without hesitation.

  As the passer-by went beyond hearing, Grant continued cheerfully as if there had been no parenthesis. “When you’ve disposed of the woman in Brightling Crescent—and keep your eyes open generally—go to 54 Lemonora Road and see if any one there recognizes it. Report as soon as you have finished.”

  When the pedlar of Italian goods reached the back door of 54 Lemonora Road about teatime, a pretty but sapless maid said, “Goodness, here’s another!”

  “Another wot?” said the pedlar.

  “Another man selling things.”

  “Oh? Bin a lot? Bet they hadn’t anything like mine,” he said, and opened the tray.

  “Oh!” she said, obviously enraptured. “Are they dear?”

  “Not them. ’Sides, a girl with wages like yours can easy afford something nice.”

  “What do you know about my wages, mister?”

  “Well, I don’t know anything. I’m just dedoocing. Pretty girl, nice house, good wages.”

  “Oh, the wages are good enough,” she said in a tone that indicated other shortcomings.

  “Wouldn’t the lady of the house like to have a look at them?” he said.

  “There’s no lady,” she said. “I’m the lady of the house just now. The missus is at Eastbourne. You been in the Army?”

  “I was in the Army during the War. That’s the only time bin in the Army counts. France? I was four years in France, miss.”

  “Well, you can come in and have some tea, and let me see the things properly. We’re just in the middle of it.”

  She led him into the kitchen, where the table was spread with butter, bread, several kinds of jam, and cake. At the table, with an enormous cup of tea halfway to his mouth, was a freckled fair man with a blue muffler and a discharged soldier’s silver badge on his lapel. Beside him on the table was a pile of cheap writing-pads.

  “This is another ex-serviceman,” the maid said. “He’s selling writing-paper. I shouldn’t think there’s much sale for it now. It’s ages since I seen some one round selling pads.”

  “How do, mate?” said the freckled one, meeting the quizzical regard of the pedlar with complete equanimity. “How’s trade?”

  “Fair. Just fair. You seem to be very comfortable.”

  “Well, I needed it. Haven’t sold a pad today. This country’s going to the dogs. It’s something to come across some one now and again who has a heart.”

  “Have some jam,” said the maid, pushing his cup of tea across to the pedlar, and he helped himself liberally.

  “Well, I’m glad the missus isn’t at home in one way, but I’m sorry in another. I thought as how she might buy something, too.”

  “Well, I’m not sorry,” she said. “It’s a bless
ed relief. What with her airs and her tantrums, life isn’t worth living.”

  “Got a temper, has she?”

  “Well, I call it temper, but she calls it nerves. And ever since this murder affair—she was in the queue that night the man was murdered, you know. Yes, stood right up against him. And oh, what a to-do! And then she had to go to the inquest and give evidence. If she’d done the murder herself she couldn’t have kicked up a bigger fuss about going. The night before she was screaming and howling and saying she couldn’t stand it. And when the poor master tried to quiet her down she wouldn’t let him go near her. Hurling names at him you wouldn’t use to a dog. I tell you it wasn’t half a relief when she went off to Eastbourne with Miss Lethbridge—that’s her sister.”

  “Yes, the best thing they can do when they’re like that is to go away for a bit,” said the freckled man. “Does she go often?”

  “Not so often as I’d like, believe me. She was going to Yorkshire the day after the murder, and then was so upset that she couldn’t go. Now she’s gone to Eastbourne instead, and long may she stay there, say I. Let’s see your stuff,” she said to the pedlar.

  He jerked his head at the tray. “Have a look for yourself. Anything you fancy you can have cheap. It’s a long time since I had a tea like this. Wot say, Bill?”

  “Ar,” agreed his fellow-itinerant through a large mouthful of cake. “It isn’t often people has a heart.”

  She gloated over the bright-coloured collection awhile. “Well, the missus is missing something,” she said. “She’s mad on curios and such-like things that hold the dust. Artistic, she is. What’s this for?” she said, holding up the dagger. “Murdering people with?”

  “An’t you ever seen one like that before?” the pedlar said in astonishment. “That’s a paper-knife. Same as the wooden ones.”

  She tried the point absently on a fingertip, and with a queer little shudder of disgust that was quite involuntary she put it down again. In the end she chose a little painted bowl, quite useless but very gay to look upon. The pedlar let her have it for sixpence, and in her gratitude she produced cigarettes of Mr. Ratcliffe’s, and while they smoked enlivened them with talk of what was obviously uppermost in her mind—the murder.

  “We had an inspector of police here, if you’d believe it. Quite nice-looking he was. You’d never say he was a policeman. Not coarse like a bobby. But it wasn’t nice, all the same, having him round. Of course he was suspicious, with her carrying on like that and not wanting to see him. I heard Miss Lethbridge say to her, ‘Don’t be a fool, Meg. The only way to stop him is to see him and convince him. You’ve got to do it.’ ”

  “Well, Eastbourne’s a nice place,” said the freckled man. “She’ll have company there to forget her troubles.”

  “Ah, she’s not one for company much. Always having crazes for some one or other, and then she runs them to death and has some one new. Boys, as often as not. She’s queer, she is.”

  When her talk began to be repetitive instead of informative the freckled man stood up and said, “Well, miss, I ain’t had such a tea, not in years, and I’m real grateful to you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “If you take my advice, you’ll give up the writing-pad business. There’s nothing in it nowadays. It’s old-fashioned. Try stuff like him there—novelty stuff like they sell in the shops at Christmastime.”

  The freckled man’s glance fell sardonically on the dagger among the “Christmas goods.” “You going up the road or down?” he said to the pedlar.

  “Up,” said the pedlar.

  “Well, cheerio, I’ll be going. Many thanks again for the tea, miss.” And the door closed behind him. Five minutes later the pedlar took his leave.

  “If I was you, miss, I wouldn’t be so free with my teas,” he said. “There’s lots of decent chaps on the road, but there’s lots of the other kind, too. You can’t be too careful when you’re alone in the house.”

  “Are you jealous of the freckly man?” she asked coquettishly and quite unimpressed. “You needn’t be. I didn’t buy a pad, you know.”

  “Well, well,” said the pedlar, frustrated in his good intentions, and went laggingly down the path to the gate.

  By sheer chance he found the freckled man occupying the front outside seat of the bus he boarded.

  “Well?” said that worthy cheerily. “Had a good day, mate?”

  “Rotten,” said the pedlar. “Just rotten. How you been doing?”

  “Fair. Isn’t it amazing,” he said, seeing that the bus-top behind them was deserted, “what fools these girls are! Why, we could have polished her off and made away with everything in the house, and it never seemed to occur to her.”

  “I said as much to her when I was going, but she thought I was jealous of you.”

  “Of me? It should be the other way about. She didn’t buy a pad!”

  “So she pointed out.”

  “That was a good stock you had. The boss choose it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thought so. He’s a daisy. What’s he nosing out there?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “The girl didn’t fall for the knife, I noticed.”

  “No.” The pedlar was not communicative.

  The freckled one resigned himself. “Chatty bird!” he remarked, and drawing two cigarettes from the recesses of his person he handed one to his companion. The pedlar cast an idle glance at the maker’s name and recognized it as one of Mr. Ratcliffe’s. His stern features relaxed into a smile.

  “Scrounger!” he said, and held his cigarette to the offered match.

  But there was nothing of the freebooter in the reports which Mullins and Simpson presented to Grant an hour later. Simpson said that Mr. and Mrs. Ratcliffe lived on amicable terms, with intervals of very severe squall. Simpson was unable to say whether the squall was started by Mr. Ratcliffe’s shortcomings or by Mr. Ratcliffe’s resentment of his wife’s, since the maid was never present at the beginning of a quarrel. What she heard she heard through a shut door usually. The biggest row had occurred when they came home on the night of the murder. Since then they had not been on friendly terms. Mrs. Ratcliffe had intended to go to Yorkshire the day after the murder, but was too upset to go; and after the inquest she and her sister had gone down to Eastbourne, where she was now at the Grand Parade Hotel. She was a person who took sudden and violent likings for people, and during the time she liked them would be quite unreasonable about them. She had a little money of her own, and was rather independent of her husband.

  Mullins said that at 98 he had had difficulty in making Mrs. Everett interested enough to allow him to open his tray. She had insisted that she wanted nothing. When he did uncover his wares, the first thing her eyes had lighted on was the dagger. She had immediately cast a glance full of suspicion at him and had said, “Go away!” and shut the door in his face.

  “What do you think? Did she know it?”

  Mullins could not say, but it was the sight of it that had made her shut the door like that. She had been going to put up with him until she saw the knife. The maid at Lemonora Road had never seen it before. That he was sure of.

  When he had dismissed Mullins and locked away the knife in its drawer again, Grant sat thinking for a long time. This was an unlucky day. There had been no arrest—though he was inclined to think of that as a mixed blessing—there had been the stunning discovery that Sorrell had really meant to go to America, and there had been no trace of the bank-notes handed over to Lamont with the rest of the two hundred and twenty-three pounds, of which the twenty-five sent by the unknown friend had been part. It was seven days since the murder, and the notes had been handed out ten days before that, and not one of them, apart from the twenty-five in their possession, had been traced. Moreover, his two scouts had brought in nothing of importance. In no way could he account for a connexion between Mrs. Ratcliffe and Sorrell. He was inclined to think it sheer coincidence that had put their names together in a ship’s list and had placed them
together in the queue. Her husband’s appearance of shock when Grant had mentioned the departure for New York might have been merely the result of the recollection that he had omitted to tell the inspector of his wife’s intended departure. As for Mrs. Everett, her sudden withdrawal spoke more of intelligence than of guilt. Mullins had said that she looked at him suspiciously. She had made no attempt to carry off the situation with a high hand by ignoring the dagger or by wantonly calling attention to it. She had been merely suspicious. He decided to give the Everett woman a few more marks for intelligence and to acquit her of complicity. As for the Ratcliffes, he would temporarily cut them out. They didn’t fit, and there was no evidence. Things often fit to the police satisfaction when there is no evidence whatever, but here things neither fitted nor were backed by evidence, and consequently would have to stand aside. Presently he would find out why Mrs. Ratcliffe had told her maid that she was going to Yorkshire when she intended to go abroad.