Death for Madame

by Peter Main

  “Ho,” he hooted, “let’s try makin’ a list o’ the people who were stayin’ at The Boudoir and kinda work out what they gain by the murder an’ what we know about ’em an’ all the rest of it.”

  The Chief Inspector looked at him rather sourly.

  “Well,” he said after a moment, “you can try doing that if you like, but I must say that I don’t think we know enough yet to enable us to get any real help from the preparation of such a list.”

  The Professor was doodling absent-mindedly on the table. A large cat was looking pensively at a mouse rather larger than itself.

  “Apart from that,” the Bishop went on, “you seem to forget that I am a busy man and that there are duties to which I must attend. It’s all very well for you, John, to spend the whole day working out hypothetical cases against everyone in turn. I have no doubt that I could probably present you with an apparently convincing case against any one of the people who were present in the hotel. But it would remain apparently convincing until I discovered the facts which would help make it into a real case. I have to work from evidence and I cannot just let my mind roam around playing idly with ideas. And all the time I have been sitting here I have been wasting time that should have been employed in collecting that evidence. I have no doubt, John, that here and now you could manage to make out a separate case against each person in the hotel, and I also believe that probably when I have discovered the true facts that your case might have some connection with the truth. That is all very well, but I can’t go to my superiors and say, ‘Look here. Here are the cases against all these people. One of them is right.’ They’d think I’d gone mad, and I may say that I have no ambition to pass the rest of my days as a private detective, snooping about the back entrances of hotels and giving monotonous evidence in the divorce courts.”

  He rose slowly to his feet and the old man gestured to the waitress. The bill for coffees was larger than I would have thought possible if it had been anyone else than Professor Stubbs.

  On the pavement outside the old man looked lovingly at his old car.

  “Tell’ee what, Reggie,” he said with the air of one who has just had a brilliant idea, “I’ll run ye back to the Yard an’ ye can find out for me what is known about these people.”

  The Chief Inspector shuddered and looked around desperately in the hope of finding a taxi. There was neither a taxi nor a bus in sight. With the air of one of the damned entering the Inferno, the Bishop, having given up the hope of flight, climbed into the car.

  The old man, out of deference to the fact that he was driving a police officer in the course of duty, excelled himself as a bad driver. Despite the notices saying that the speed limit was twenty miles an hour, we went through the Park at about forty and I still don’t know how we managed to get across Park Lane. He as nearly hit the policeman on point duty as I would have believed possible. Looking back hopelessly, I saw that the policeman was noting down the number of the Bentley.

  The Professor smiled happily to himself. Roaring to make himself heard above the batter of his engine, he turned to the Chief Inspector, more or less leaving the car to her own devices while he did so.

  “Ye’ll ha’ to squash that one,” he bellowed gleefully. “It wouldn’t look any too good to have it in the papers that you were in the car when I was summonsed for dangerous driving.”

  The Chief Inspector merely looked unhappy. If the old man had given him a chance I think he would have dismounted and walked to Scotland Yard, but the Professor, disregarding traffic lights with a cavalier indifference, gave him no chance.

  By the time we swung into Pall Mall, judging from his face, the Chief Inspector felt that the toad-in-the-hole which he had had for lunch had come to life and that battalions of sausage-shaped toads were hopping about inside him.

  We followed the shaken figure upstairs into his office. The old man promptly made himself at home in the large old-fashioned chair which he had somehow persuaded the Bishop to install. I think this chair must have been found somewhere in the attics of the Yard and was a relic of the days when policemen impressed by their bulk more than by their brains.

  The Chief Inspector sank into his own chair and took out a clean white handkerchief. He wiped his face with hands that shook.

  “While ye’re at it,” prompted the old man helpfully, “ye’d better do somethin’ about that summons which is boilin’ up somewhere else in this dam’ warren.”

  Obediently the Chief Inspector took up his phone and spoke the necessary words to someone elsewhere.

  “Damn it, John,” he said, laying down the receiver, “this is the last time I ride in your car, so long as you are driving, and it’s the last time that I lift a finger to get you out of trouble, the last time, I say. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to hear that your licence had been suspended for an indefinite period. I would know I was safe.”

  “Dammit,” the old man protested, “I’m a careful enough driver. I never hit anyone, an’ I’ve never lost a passenger.”

  “No?” said the Chief Inspector. “Well, you’ve lost one now. God alone knows how many years you’ve taken off my life by your infernal driving. Never again. Never again.”

  His voice was decisive.

  Chapter 6

  Digging Up the Past

  WE LOOKED at the papers which were spread out on the Chief Inspector’s desk. There were files of official records, and notes by various hands.

  “Ho,” chuckled the old man happily, “so ye see I was right. Umhum. It looks as though the Bakers’ll have to do a bit o’ explaining.”

  I wondered vaguely what explaining they would have to do. But there was no doubt that they were familiar to the police. They had been mixed up in a considerable number of jewel robberies, which they had organised by managing to get themselves invited to country-houses as guests. As criminals, however, they did not seem to be very great or imaginative. After they had used this technique successfully half a dozen times they just went on using it, and, as the Chief Inspector pointed out, when the police made lists of the guests present at the time of each robbery and realised that the Bakers were the common factor in them all, they had not much trouble in apprehending them. They had both served sentences and had apparently realised that the old system was played out, for the more recent notes about them dealt with charges relating to the running of common gaming-houses. It seemed that the Bakers got hold of a flat and furnished it expensively and then proceeded to run the place as a gambling-den. It seemed as though they had been rather more successful in this enterprise than they had been as jewel thieves. The takings, I gathered from the Bishop, were on the whole greater and the risk was smaller. There were several fines recorded in the records, but, as I realised, these probably represented a small percentage on the gross takings.

  The Chief Inspector’s guess had been right when he had said that it seemed that Roland Grimble had been mixed up in the Mayfair robberies of a few years back. He had served a six months’ sentence for his part in a robbery with violence. Somehow or other a Bond Street jeweller had been persuaded to bring some watches to a room in a hotel where he had been set upon by three young men who had hit him over the head and then tied him up. The jeweller had been very seriously injured and had only just escaped with his life. Grimble had not been one of the young men concerned in the actual assault, but he had tried to dispose of some of the watches, and had been caught. Since then he seemed to have lived within the letter of the law, on the benevolence of his relatives. He had duly been called up for the Army but, after serving for three months, had been discharged on the grounds that he was psychoneurotic, a wide term which can be used by the authorities to cover every sort of unsuitability.

  I had often, during sticky ops, wished I was psychoneurotic and that I could work my ticket, but I’d no such luck. They hung on to me to the bitter end. I’d nothing against Grimble on that score, but only envied him his luck.

  The girl, Janet Morgan, also had a police record. She
had come to London from Wales as a young girl and, running short of money, before she realised her full capabilities, had carelessly stolen from several large stores, where her carelessness had led to her being caught. But that was a long time ago, and since then she seemed to have evaded that sort of trouble.

  The old man read these records through carefully. He scowled at the sheets of paper.

  “Reggie,” he bellowed suddenly, “could ye get hold o’ the lawyer feller an’ find out how the Bakers come to be included in Lottie Rattigan’s will?“

  The Chief Inspector went through the necessary performance with the telephone while I tried to raise my mental level by thinking of higher things than murder. I fixed my mind on the problem of the number of chromosomes in certain members of the saxifraga. I might as well have spent the time twiddling my thumbs; the old man’s grunting would have disturbed anyone who was not deaf as a post.

  “Well, John,” the Chief Inspector had finished, “I don’t think you’ll find much help there. The Bakers have been in Mrs. Rattigan’s wills over a period of several months. I gathered that the old girl dearly loved a gamble and that they provided her with it, so she was duly grateful and put them down for a memento, a pretty handsome one I must say.”

  “Hell,” said the Professor, “I wish I knew who was aware o’ the contents o’ Lottie Rattigan’s will, an’ whether the murder was done wi’ the hope o’ benefitin’ from her decease. Ye see, Reggie, wi’ a woman who changed her mind as often as that, no one could ha’ bin sure o’ his position from one day to the next. Did ye find what it was that the lawyer was doin’ on her will yesterday, eh?”

  “Yes. She called him in to attach these conditions to her bequest to her nephew Roland Grimble. Until yesterday morning, he was due to receive the money without any strings tied to it. I suppose I’ll need to try and find out what action of his suddenly influenced the old woman to make it impossible for her nephew to claim his inheritance. She must have been pretty put out about something to do a thing like that. For I must say that I don’t see anyone employing that young man at a salary of ten pounds a week. I can’t see that he’d be worth ten shillings to anyone. All she has done is to sour him, for he’ll be convinced that he’s been cheated out of his rights and no matter if the two thousand pounds is preserved through all eternity for him to claim it, he’ll never manage it. Of course,” the Chief Inspector’s tone was thoughtful, “there are still certain fringes of the black market left untied, and I suppose he might manage to pick up the money there. So far as I know there was no clause in the will insisting that the money should be obtained honestly. No, thinking it over, I wouldn’t be surprised if Master Grimble made a strong effort to fulfil the conditions, by playing with the black market. I don’t suppose he’d have much trouble getting in on that—most of his associates who could not find relatives to scrounge from have gone into dealing. A wonderful word —‘dealing’—it covers nearly everything and may be either straight or crooked. Yes. I’ll look into that matter.”

  He made a note to remind him to look into the possibility of Roland Grimble being mixed up with the black market. I did not see where that was going to lead him, as even if Grimble was a sort of king blacketeer, it still would not help solve the question of the murder of his aunt. Then I realised that it was typical of the Chief Inspector’s methodical mind. In the course of a case he might stumble across things that had no apparent direct connection with that case, but which appeared to him to be on the wrong side of the law. Anything like this was carefully noted down and passed to the appropriate person for investigation.

  “Humph,” mumbled Professor Stubbs, “well, I suppose ye’ll do yer best to find out if young Grimble knew about his aunt’s intentions towards him. Not that it’ll do ye much good if ye find out that he did know, for I must say that I don’t see that young man killin’ for revenge, not unless there was a dam’ fat dividend attached to his vengeance.”

  The telephone shrilled briskly at the Chief Inspector’s elbow. He picked it up and listened.

  “Yes,” he said, “yes, send him up.” He turned towards the old man. “Speak of the devil, if you don’t mind the cliché. That is Mr. Roland Grimble. He has some information which he thinks I should know.”

  Grimble was shown into the room. He looked insolently at the Chief Inspector, and then at the Professor and me.

  “Is this crowd really necessary?” he asked, lolling against the lintel of the door.

  “Mr. Grimble,” the Chief Inspector’s tone was not conciliatory, “I am the judge of who I consider it necessary to have in my office, not you. When I require your comments upon my conduct of a case I will ask for them. Until then I trust that you will restrain your comments to matters which concern yourself directly. I understand you have something you wish to tell me?”

  Grimble took a packet of Craven A from his pocket. He lit one and with the same gesture as he had employed in the morning towards Mr. Smellman, blew a puff of smoke towards the Chief Inspector. He might just as well have waved a bottle of Chanel 5 under the Bishop’s nose. The Chief Inspector was imperturbable.

  “Well,” he said, looking at the impertinent face, “I am waiting. If you have anything you wish to say will you please be quick about it. I am a busy man.”

  “You,” said Grimble with an amused look, “you busy? I know you’re a damned busy, but I don’t believe you work.”

  “Mr. Grimble,” the Chief Inspector’s tone was sharp, “I would like to remind you that, in view of your record, I would be within my rights in holding you as a suspected person.”

  “My record?” said Grimble innocently. “Oh, you mean that.” He spoke rather rapidly. “I was framed for that. It was a shopping.”

  “All right,” the Chief Inspector was cold, “it always is a shopping. Come on now, Grimble,” I noticed that he had dropped the Mister, “say what you have to say and get out.”

  Grimble looked nervously at him. The insolence had shrivelled like the plumpness of a pricked bladder.

  “I just thought I ought to say,” he began, “in case you are suspecting me of having anything to do with my aunt’s death, that I have an alibi.”

  “Really, that is most interesting,” said the Chief Inspector in a very bored voice. “And what is your alibi, Grimble?”

  “Janet, Miss Morgan,” Grimble said hastily.

  “Well,” said the Chief Inspector listlessly. He did not seem to be paying much attention to what Grimble said. “Why couldn’t you have told us that this morning?”

  “Sir,” Grimble looked like a clown trying to be dignified, “I couldn’t. I had to think of Janet’s honour.”

  “Her what?” said the Chief Inspector, stung into wakefulness in spite of himself. Grimble shot a glance at him which contained about as much concentrated hate as I’ve ever seen compressed into a glance.

  “Her honour,” he said again, without the pomposity.

  If the Chief Inspector had been an American Chief of Police I think he would have said, “Oh, yeah?” As it was he just looked at Grimble curiously.

  “I don’t know what game you’re playing, Grimble,” he said, “but I’ll offer you one piece of advice and that is ‘don’t.’ When you come to me with a story about your protecting a woman’s honour, I must confess I smell a rat, a good stout and sturdy rat. Miss Morgan’s honour, as you call it, does not need protecting. Now let me have your alibi.”

  “That’s it,” said Grimble, “I spent the night in her room.”

  “Yes?” said the Chief Inspector helpfully. Grimble looked at him with resentment burning in his eyes.

  “That’s all,” he said. The Chief Inspector sighed. He drew a curly tail on to a pig on the blotting-pad before him. Then he looked up. His expression showed that he was surprised that Grimble was still there.

  “That’ll do, Grimble,” he said. “Shut the door behind you.”

  The resentment in Grimble’s face flushed up and it seemed that he was on the point of leaning across
the desk and hitting the Chief Inspector. He thought better of the idea and went to the door. He could not, however, resist the temptation of slamming it behind him. I jumped at the noise, and so did the Bishop. Professor Stubbs did not seem to notice it. I doubt if he even heard it. He seemed to be following a line of thought of his own and to be unwilling to let little things like a crashing door disturb him.

  “Well,” said the Chief Inspector, “what do you make of that, John?”

  “Eh?” the old man looked startled, “make of what, eh? Oh that young man, eh? He’s either a fool or else he’s playin’ some very deep an’ clever game which we ain’t tumbled to yet. Shouldn’t be surprised if it’s a bit o’ both. He’s frightened, though, an’ ye can sometimes get somethin’ out o’ a man when he’s scared which he wouldn’t let go while he was in his normal state. D’ye think ye’ll find out what he’s up to?”

  “I’ll have a damned good try,” said the Chief Inspector, “and what’s more, I’ll see if that girl Morgan is mixed up in it too.”

  “Or,” said the old man deeply, “whether she’s just supplyin’ an alibi in the way o’ business. I’d ha’ said, from my look at that young lady, that she’d ha’ bin a bit more than Mr. Roland Grimble could afford. She don’t look as though she was in the shillin’s an’ pence class somehow. Well, there yo are, Reggie, ye got plenty to go on wi’ an’ may the good Lord help you wi’ it.”