The Nursery Rhyme Murders

by Gerald Verner

  Leek brushed the cobwebs from his hair and face and took out his torch, for it was almost dark inside. Switching it on, he moved the light from side to side revealing some broken china and a heap of old pots and saucepans.

  He had been so full of his dreams of triumph that the magnitude of his task had not come fully home to him, but now, as he stood in the ruin of the old kitchen, he realised just what difficulties lay ahead.

  Somewhere in this rotting shell of a house lay hidden, if he was right and it never occurred to him for a moment that he wasn’t, a large sum of money, concealed there by the man who had been sent to act as a spy. Somewhere. .?

  That was the difficulty. Where? The house was a large one. The hiding place could be anywhere. . . .

  Leek decided that he might as well start with the ground floor and began to make a systematic search of the kitchen. He went over every inch of it meticulously, turning over the rubbish, examining the floor and the walls, and found—nothing.

  The door to the passage had long since been reduced to a heap of rotting timber and he moved through the opening into the short, narrow passage that led to the great hall. He was careful to search this passage with the same care that he had expended on the kitchen and with the same result.

  It was unlikely, he though, that the spy had used the upstairs rooms at all. His leg had been injured in landing, injured badly enough to force him to seek refuge in the ruined house, so it was doubtful if he would have been able to negotiate the stairs. The most likely place, therefore, for him to choose to hide anything would be the ground floor.

  Well, there was still plenty of that to explore. The great hall, and the two big rooms that opened off it.

  Leek came to the archway that opened into the hall, and hesitated. It was nearly quite dark outside, now, and it would take him a long time to complete his search. Perhaps it would be better to give it up for that night and start again in the morning. But in the morning there might not be a chance. Budd might send him off on some job or other and there would be no opportunity. Better get on with it while the going was good.

  He had decided to start with the room on the right, and had just begun to pick his way across the hall, when he heard a sound that brought him to a dead stop.

  With straining ears, he stood motionless, listening.

  Silence!

  He came to the conclusion that what he had heard was the movement of a rat or some other creature, and he was just on the point of continuing his way, when he heard the sound again!

  There was no mistaking it this time. It was a loud creak and it came from the direction of the room he was making for.

  With his nerves strung up like taut wires, he stopped again, trying to locate the sound above the sudden thumping of his heart. For a moment he could hear nothing and then, quite loudly, there came a thud followed by the sound of a soft footstep crossing a wooden floor.

  Somebody had entered the old house. . . .

  Chapter Eleven

  Leek stepped noiselessly backwards and crouched down in the shadow of the big staircase.

  There was definitely someone in that room—someone who had entered by way of the window. He could hear them moving about uncertainly.

  A tinge of colour crept into his pale cheeks and he felt his pulses throbbing with excitement. Was he on the verge of making an important discovery? Suppose this was the murderer. . . .?

  He waited almost holding his breath, but now there was no sound from the room across the hall. The person in there, whoever-it-was, had stopped, probably to listen too. Leek could almost see him standing there, leaning slightly forward, alert and watchful.

  And then he heard him again, a stealthy movement as he came nearer to the door. It hung half off its hinges, leaving a gap round the edge through which it was possible to squeeze. It was very dark but there was just enough light left to distinguish this gap as a darker shadow in the shadows that surrounded it. Leek, his eyes strained to their utmost, stared at the gap, and his hand gripped tighter on the torch.

  There was a long interval and then, dimly, he made out a faint whitish blob, where the face of a person would be, floating in the shadowy gap. There was a suppressed grunt and the unknown visitor was out in the hall. Leek could see him standing there, motionless. He could hear his rather laboured breathing.

  The lean sergeant debated with himself what he should do. Should he switch on the torch and see who it was, or should he wait and try and find out what the other was going to do?

  He decided to wait. Perhaps this unknown newcomer would lead him to what he had been looking for. . . .

  The shadowy figure by the door stirred. It began to move slowly and cautiously forward. Dimly, Leek could see that it was peering from side to side with quick, jerky little movements of the head as though it was nervous. It moved stealthily to the centre of the hall and then towards the arch that led to the passage and the kitchen. Here it stopped again and listened.

  Leek leaned forward to peer round the foot of the staircase and, in doing so, his torch came in contact with the woodwork. The sound was slight but it was sufficient. The listening figure started, and swung round with an exclamation. Leek, realising that further concealment was useless, and determined to discover who the unknown was, pressed the button on his torch and directed a blinding ray of light on the face of the figure by the archway.

  It was the Reverend Oswald Hornbeam!

  Leek gave a startled shout and scrambled to his feet.

  “Here,” he said, “What are you doing sneakin’ about this place?”

  “Who are you?” demanded the rector in a voice that held a faint quaver in its tone. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Detective-Sergeant Leek,” answered the lean man sternly, “I’d like to know what you’re doing here, sir?”

  The Reverend Oswald Hornbeam uttered a gasp of relief. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face.

  “Dear me,” he said huskily, “that was really one of the most terrifying moments of my life . . . I must admit that I thought you were the murderer.”

  “I thought you were,” said Leek. “What are you doin’ ’ere, sir, at this time of the evenin’?”

  “I was passing along the road at the back,” answered the Reverend Oswald Hornbeam, “I had been visiting one of my parishioners who is sick. I saw a light in the back portion of this house and I decided to investigate. Of course, I’d no idea it was a member of the police. . . .” He wiped his face again and put the handkerchief back in his pocket. “You are—you are looking for clues, I presume?”

  Leek explained the reason he was there and the rector listened with interest.

  “Dear me,” he said, “it would never have occurred to me that there might be anything of value hidden here.” He looked vaguely round the dark hall. “I should doubt very much indeed if such a thing could be true. At the time that the—er—man was discovered hiding here a very extensive search was made—very extensive indeed. I hardly imagine that anything would have been overlooked. Of course, one can never tell. It’s possible, but I hardly think likely.” He shook his head. “However, as I said, one never can tell.”

  Leek’s faith in his own idea remained unshaken. He was convinced that there was something hidden in that old house—something of sufficient value to account for the murders, but it was evident that his search, for that night at least, would have to be cancelled.

  The rector was obviously ill-at-ease and anxious to be gone. It must, the sergeant thought, have taken a great deal of courage on the Reverend Oswald’s part to have come, alone, to investigate the light he had seen, after what had happened in that old house. But he was trembling a little now that the reaction had set in.

  He welcomed Leek’s suggestion that they should go, and followed the lean sergeant back through the kitchen to the window by which he had made his entrance. Leek went first and assisted the Reverend Oswald Hornbeam to climb out the small window. It had been easy for Leek to negotiate, but the more b
ulky form of the rector got wedged half-way.

  “I’m afraid, I’m stuck,” he gasped, as he vainly tried to force himself through the narrow window.

  Leek grasped him by the shoulders and pulled. The rotten woodwork of the window gave way, and the rector with part of the frame draped round his shoulders, shot through the opening like a cork from a bottle, and landed in a heap at the lean sergeant’s feet. At the same moment there was a rumbling crash as the brickwork above the window, denuded of the support which the wooden framework had supplied, broke away and fell in a shower of dust and old mortar.

  The Reverend Oswald Hornbeam scrambled to his feet and surveyed the wreckage in mild dismay.

  “Really,” he said breathlessly, “the place is unsafe. One of these days, the entire structure will fall down. If that should happen while some of the children from the village are playing about here it could be very serious—very serious indeed.”

  But Sergeant Leek wasn’t listening. The fall of brick had dislodged an old and rusty ventilator that had been fixed above the window, and wedged in the broken grill was a small packet wrapped in tattered brown paper.

  “Hold this torch, will you?” said Leek, thrusting his torch into the rector’s hand. “Show the light on here.”

  “What is it?” asked the Reverend Oswald Hornbeam as he complied. “What have you found?”

  “I don’t know yet,” answered the lean sergeant, husky with the excitement that was welling up within him, “but I think it’s what I’ve been lookin’ for.”

  With fingers that shook in spite of his efforts to keep them steady, he carefully detached the packet from the rusty ventilator. The paper wrapping was wet with damp and covered with mildew. Leek gently tore it away and then stared in dismay at what he found.

  It was a very old copy of a book of childrens’ nursery rhymes.

  *

  Mr. Budd listened without comment until Leek had finished recounting his adventures of the evening.

  “Well, you have been enjoyin’ yourself, haven’t you?” he said scathingly. “Now, I s’pose it’ll be all over the village that the police are lookin’ for hidden treasure in Jackson’s Folly.”

  “At least I found somethin’,” answered Leek defensively.

  Mr. Budd grunted.

  “A child’s book of nursery rhymes,” he retorted. “An’ you nearly knocked the ’ouse down to find it.”

  He picked up the tattered book which Leek had brought back and looked at it disparagingly.

  “It may be an important clue,” said the lean sergeant. “It ties up with them rhymes on the door. . . .”

  “So do over a million copies of the same book,” remarked Mr. Budd. “That’s about as many of this as there are in existence, I should say. Prob’ly more. . . .”

  “But why should this have been hidden in the ventilator?” demanded the sergeant. “Made into a packet an’ wrapped up in brown paper?”

  The stout superintendent eyed him pityingly.

  “I s’pose it hasn’t occurred to your limited intelligence,” he said, “that this old house has been the principle playground for the village children for years? Can’t you use your imagination and think how it got there?”

  “You mean it was one of the children . . .?” began Leek.

  “Of course,” interrupted Mr. Budd. “Anybody but you would’ve guessed that straight away. . . .”

  Leek shook his head.

  “I’m not sure you’re right,” he said. “This thing could be some sort o’ code.”

  “Left by the feller that was dropped to spy?” said Mr. Budd. “Now you’re lettin’ your imagination run away with you. I shouldn’t think it was a bit likely. Anyway, it wouldn’t’ve anything to do with this business.”

  Leek was loath to have his discovery treated so cavalierly, but he knew from experience that it was useless to argue with Mr. Budd.

  “What does interest me,” remarked the big man, after a moments pause, “is this business of the Reverend Oswald Hornbeam.”

  “What business?” asked Leek in surprise.

  “Why, his suddenly turnin’ up like that,” said Mr. Budd, frowning. “Now that strikes me as both interestin’ an’ peculiar.”

  “He saw me light—I told you,” explained the sergeant.

  “That’s what he said,” remarked Mr. Budd thoughtfully. “Do you believe that if ’e’d seen a light in that house, he’d’ve risked comin’ to see what it was?” He shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t think he would. Knowin’ what had happened there, I don’t think one person out of a hundred would.”

  “What do you think he came for, then?” asked the sergeant.

  “I don’t know,” answered the stout superintendent. “But I’ve got an idea that he didn’t know there was anybody in the buildin’. When he found you was there, he had to make some excuse, an’ the light was the best he could think of.”

  Leek blinked at the other in sheer astonishment.

  “You’re not suggestin’ that the rector’s mixed up in this business, are you?” he said.

  “I don’t know who’s mixed up in it,” said Mr. Budd wearily. “So if I believe everybody is, I can’t be far wrong. There’s that schoolteacher woman, Titmarsh. She’s afraid of somethin’ an’ she knew who Sprigot was before anybody else, except the police. How did she know? I’d like to be able to answer that—an’ a good few other things as well. The thing we’ve got to do is to find some sort of a kickin’ off place. That’s what we’ve got to do, an’ I don’t mind admittin’ that I can’t think of anythin’ at the moment. I’ve come up against some pretty queer cases in me time, but this is the queerest, bar none.”

  It was completely inexplicable and chaotic. Nothing that by the wildest stretch of the imagination could be called a clue had come to light. Mr. Budd had more or less discarded his original vague idea that there might be something of value at Jackson’s Folly which Sam Sprigot had got to hear about and had taken. He couldn’t make it fit in with all the rest. Again and again he returned to that three months hiatus in the little crook’s life immediately after he had been released from prison. He had a hunch that here was the starting point he was in search of, if he could only find out where Sam Sprigot had gone and what he had been doing.

  Long after the disappointed Leek had gone to solace himself with further notes for his autobiography, the big man lay on his bed thinking.

  It was late when the idea came to him suddenly.

  Harry Bates!

  He was annoyed that he hadn’t thought of Harry before. If anybody could help him, Harry could. Harry knew everything that went on in that sub-stratum of life which is usually referred to as the underworld.

  Mr. Budd decided that he would go up to London the first thing on the following morning and seek out Harry. Having made up his mind, he undressed, got into bed, and was soon sleeping the sleep of the just.

  Chapter Twelve

  There is, in a side turning off the Tottenham Court Road, a rather dingy restaurant known colloquially, and for no known reason, to its customers as “Spotties”. It is owned and presided over by an Italian called Monelli, who appears to have absorbed so much of the oil in which he cooks his dishes that he has now reached saturation point for he is continually bedewed with greasy drops.

  Casual customers are not welcomed at “Spotties”. It caters almost exclusively for those known both to Mr. Monelli and each other, and in this respect is somewhat like a club. Strangers are looked at with suspicion and are treated with such off-hand rudeness that they seldom come again.

  And yet “Spotties” is nearly always full, for here come regularly the flotsam and jetsam of crookdom to plot and plan and compare notes, and many a hold-up, smash and grab, or other illegal enterprise, has had its genesis over spaghetti and coffee in the non-too-clean room behind the snack-counter at the entrance.

  It was nearly mid-day when Mr. Budd, in accordance with his decision of the previous night, entered this establishment and approached th
e proprietor behind the counter.

  “’Lo, Monelli,” he greeted. “I’m lookin’ for Harry Bates. Is he here?”

  Mr. Monelli, fat, greasy, and with his obese figure enveloped in a dirty apron, rubbed the thick hair on his bare forearm, and looked wary.

  “I ’ave not seen ’im for one, two, t’ree days,” he answered.

  “You can tell the truth,” said Mr. Budd genially, “I don’t want him for anythin’. I only want a word with him about Sam. You remember Sam Sprigot?”

  Mr. Monelli nodded.

  “Of course, you do,” said Mr. Budd. “Old customer of yours, eh? Well now, what about Harry?”

  Mr. Monelli jerked a dirty thumb toward the inner sanctum. He said nothing but the action required no explaining. Mr. Budd moved ponderously through the curtained arch that led into the restaurant portion of the establishment.

  The place was shaped like an L. In the main part a dozen or so small tables left a narrow aisle between them, and they were nearly all occupied. At the appearance of Mr. Budd there was a sudden dead silence, a hush of almost dreadful expectancy.

  “It’s all right, boys,” said the stout superintendent. “You can carry on happily. This is a friendly visit.” He caught sight of a thin, pale-faced little man at a corner table. “Hello, Sniffy. I’ll give you a word of advice, while I’m ’ere. I wouldn’t pull that job at Matson’s shop, if I was you?”

  He smiled and passed on and Sniffy Sleator wiped a suddenly damp face. How had the old so-and-so known that he was planning to bust Matson’s the tobacconists? He hastily revised his plans and thanked his stars for the warning.

  Mr. Budd turned the angle and found himself in the smaller portion of the restaurant. There were only three tables here, set in shallow alcoves, and the man he was looking for was sitting at one of them, a cup of coffee in front of him, studying the racing edition of an evening paper.