by Peter Main
“Thank you,” I said politely, wiping the beer from my hand. He got up and disappeared along the corridor to fetch a trayful of charged tankards.
He laid these down on the table and picked up the dice and put them in his pocket.
“Old Arthur’s ill,” he volunteered, “poor old boy. He worked for Aunt Lottie for donkey’s years and was never ill. She used to ring that bell at all hours of the day and night and there the old boy would be—ready to bring her a drink or a cup of tea. But as soon as she’s dead he cracks up. I really do think that the old boy has taken her death to heart. She used to treat him rather like a working dog but he adored her, and would have done anything on earth for her. Poor old fellow. I got a sawbones in to him this morning, but all he could say was that old Arthur was physically and mentally exhausted and that he needed a really good rest. So far as I’m concerned he’s welcome to it. It’s no real hardship to me to draw my own beer, I make certain of getting good measure that way, eh?”
He laughed and tilted one of the tankards to his lips. It came down empty. While I have no doubt that, if it came to a contest, Professor Stubbs could hold more beer than Mr. Carr, still Mr. Carr would have given him a run for his money in speed of sinking pints.
Maggie looked back into the hall. She was carrying a bottle of whisky in her hand. She looked wistfully at Mr. Carr.
“Won’t you let me play for just a little,” she asked, “I’d like to win the pants off that old geezer.”
Mr. Carr looked at her sternly. “That old geezer, as you call him,” he said, “is my friend Professor John Stubbs, and if I find you playing dice with him I’ll take the pants off you, woman, with a stick.”
She did not seem abashed but flashed white strong teeth at us and tilted the whisky bottle to her lips. There was no doubt in my mind now that, mad though The Boudoir had been during the regime of Lottie Rattigan, it was due for much madder times in the immediate future.
Chapter 11
Troubles of a Toper
“MY IDEA,” said Mr. Carr earnestly; “is that I should run this hotel for the benefit of my friends. If I don’t like a fellow’s looks I just will refuse him a bed.”
“But,” I asked, “will your friends pay for the beds they occupy?”
“That,” Mr. Carr was lofty, “is not a matter which will worry me. I have suddenly become rich and I like spending money. I have turned over a new leaf and have become a respectable member of society. No more dice, thank you,” he paused with an expression that said that perhaps he had been hasty and he amended his statement, “at least not with Maggie. You see, dice with Maggie is dangerous. If I play dice with her I always lose—she uses crooked ones, of course—and I know that before long she’d have won the hotel from me. I am going to enjoy running this hotel.”
“Uhhuh, son, while the money lasts,” said the Professor helpfully.
“Oh, it’ll last,” Mr. Carr was positive, “and if it doesn’t, well, I’ve been broke before and I know how to get along. I’m almost an expert on being broke. If I had the time I might write a book on how to be broke but happy. On the other hand, I might not.”
He scowled thoughtfully at an empty tankard, won at Oxford in the late eighties by some long dead hearty.
“There is, however,” he said slowly, “what you might call a wasp in the butter. Now I am a respectable hotel-keeper I realise that it does not do any good to have bluebottles hovering around your pub, and these coppers will not go away. You know,” he was earnest, “I am beginning to get the feeling that I’ll find a policeman hidden in the bottom of my tankard. It’s not good for the nerves. I never was what you’d call a policeman-fancier in a big way. You leave the police alone and they won’t harm you was my motto, and, as mottoes go, it’s a good one. But now I find that this place is breeding coppers as a piece of bad meat breeds maggots.”
He looked around, as though expecting to see a policeman appearing like a genie in the middle of the fire.
“What,” he addressed himself to the Professor, “are the cops doing with the idea that I murdered Aunt Lottie for her cash? I can suggest plenty they could do with the idea, but I’d like to know what they are doing with it.”
The Professor was having difficulty with his pipe. A piece of plug the size of a pea, seemed to have become wedged in the hole at the bottom. He removed the charge of tobacco and scraped away carefully. Then he looked up at Mr. Carr, wagging his head heavily so that the hair waved up and down on his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m afraid I kinda ran into a bit o’ bother there. After I’d landed yer cousin an’ his girl in clink, I thought the police would see that I was bein’ cunnin’ and that they’d call off the dogs they ha’ followin’ ye. But, not a bit o’ it. They’re so dam’ full o’ the righteousness o’ the limpin’ law that they wouldn’t take me word for it that ye were innocent. I’ll show ’em, tho’. Just you wait an’ see.”
I could see the shades of the prison-house beginning to close around the innocent Mr. Carr. I must say that, on the whole, I have rarely seen a man who was less worried by the prospect of the cell.
“Oh, well, Prof,” he said in a voice full of resignation, “it’ll always be somewhere new to stay. I’ve never been properly jailed before. The only times I’ve been there have been when I was young and couldn’t take my drink, but then there was some excuse for it. I really couldn’t blame the police for running me in for sleeping on top of one of the lions in Trafalgar Square. Did I ever tell you about the worst thing that happened to me? I’d been drinking brandy—keep off brandy, old cock—and I was found sleeping in a coster’s barrow in Covent Garden. Well, I wouldn’t wake up so they wheeled me in the barrow to Bow Street. In the morning I was still asleep so they took me into court in that condition and woke me enough to plead guilty. The coppers took my fine from my pocket and handed me over to a cab-driver, who took me home, took his fare and put me to bed. I didn’t wake up for another twenty-four hours. Not so good, eh?”
The old man seemed to be about to reply, but I suddenly saw his eyes swivelling towards the stairs which led down to a short corridor on one side of the fantastic hall.
I followed the line of his vision and saw the suave, rather too-well-dressed Mr. Baker, followed by his wife. Mr. Baker carried two expensive-looking pigskin suitcases. He had a dark green hat on his head and over one arm was a camel-hair coat.
“Hullo, son,” it was the Professor being, I thought, rather too obvious. “Movin’ out, eh?”
Mr. Baker’s look said, as plainly as words could have done, that it was none of Professor Stubb’s business what he was doing. If he’d known the Professor as well as I do, he would have realised that this sort of look would have about as much impression on him as an air-gun dart on a mad elephant. The old man looked, and I am sure he was, quite unabashed.
“D’ye not like the cookin’; or what?” he enquired gustily Mr. Baker ignored him, and turned to Mr. Carr.
“Carr,” he said smoothly, “I hope you will understand that, after the dreadful death of your aunt, I cannot ask my wife to stay any longer in this house. To a woman of her sensitivity, the fact that there has been a murder here is a continual worry.”
The beautiful and highly enamelled Mrs. Baker did not look as though she genuinely suffered from any excess of sensitiveness, but then, I thought to myself, one could never be sure. She might, for all I knew, be putting a brave front on it. All the same, I had my doubts.
The old man grumbled in an undertone that was not far enough under to prevent everyone hearing what he said.
What he said was, “I wonder, me lady, how yer sensitivity got on in clink?”
Mr. Baker turned a cold and fishlike eye on the old man. He seemed to be a great one for using glances. In many cases I suppose they might have been successful, but, as I’ve said, not against the amaranthine hide of the Professor. I would, myself, probably have been properly quashed, but the old man came up like a heavy-weight boxer who had been t
aking a short count to give him a rest.
“All right, son,” he said encouragingly, “take it easy. I suppose ye don’t like the sight of all these blinkin’ coppers hangin’ around the place, eh? If I was in yer position I wouldn’t like ’em meself.”
For a moment Mr. Baker looked as though he was about to ignore this gratuitous rudeness, but he thought better of it.
“As a matter of fact, my dear man,” he was stiff and lofty, “I do not consider that my motives for any action I perform are any business of yours. I hope that you will understand, sir, that our position in this house has become difficult, not to say invidious. We are, I may say quite unexpectedly, beneficiaries under the will of the late Mrs. Rattigan. Both I and my wife were deeply devoted to Mrs. Rattigan, who was in many ways a most remarkable old lady.”
“Did she skin ye?” the Professor put in, abruptly, and Mr. Baker looked shocked as he went on.
“Naturally, having been so deeply fond of Mrs. Rattigan, my wife and I felt that these surroundings, where we had been so happy, could hold nothing but unhappy memories and associations for us, so we decided that we would prefer to find lodgings elsewhere.”
“But, cock,” it was Mr. Carr, “I’ve got nothing against your staying on. I don’t even mind if you don’t pay your bill.”
Mr. Baker flushed angrily. He looked as though he was just about to burst out at Mr. Carr. Then he pulled himself together.
“That, sir,” his voice was stiff, “was a matter which I wished to discuss with you in private. It is a matter which, I believe, need concern no one except ourselves. Since, however, you have chosen to raise the subject here, I suppose there is no help for it.”
This seemed to me to be a very long-winded way of beginning to say that one didn’t happen to find it convenient to pay one’s bill at the moment. I could see it coming. I was right.
“I felt,” Mr. Baker said, “that this was a matter which required some delicacy of treatment among people of sensitivity.” He seemed to be very keen on the word. “But as I see that you are determined to be offensive, I may say that, at the moment, I find myself unexpectedly short of ready cash and do not find it possible to pay the small, I might almost say insignificant sum, for which I believe I am indebted.”
“Seventy-eight pounds fourteen,” said Mr. Carr in a mechanical voice. Mr. Baker looked at him as though he would gladly have walloped him over the head with a suitcase. Mr. Carr was happily unconscious of this look. He was examining a sheet of paper which he had set out before him.
“Not that I mind, cock,” he said cheerfully, “I don’t mind about your bill. You needn’t take it to heart so badly. I never expected that you would pay it. This,” he tapped the sheet in front of him, “is a list of what I thought were bad debts to my aunt, and I’d already counted you among them. I didn’t expect you to pay, and all I can say is that by going, you will save me a bit in the future.”
Mr. Baker was by this time almost incoherent. He nearly managed to splutter before he got his temper under control.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, “for your frankness. Let me assure you, however, that as soon as I am in a position to pay my small,” he stressed the word, “debt, you will receive it. I need not, I think, remind you that I am a beneficiary under Mrs. Rattigan’s will, and I will communicate with her lawyer and ask him to settle with you from that. I wish you a very good day.”
Mr. Carr looked up. “But see here, cock,” he said, “I’m not chasing you for payment. I didn’t mind having you here and I didn’t mind your not paying. I was quite happy about it. Why do you take on so? I hope you didn’t think I was being rude. It was only just that the way you took it was rather silly. When you’ve been broke as often as I have, you won’t need to treat it so seriously. It’s not a serious state of affairs at all. I’ve been broke in every country in Europe and in nearly every town in England, and it hasn’t worried me much.”
Mr. Baker did not stand upon the order of his going, but went. He really did seem to be very angry. He swung out of the door of the hotel, followed by his wife. It seemed to me that the enamel had extended to her tongue; one doesn’t expect a piece of Cloisonne to speak and nor did she.
The humiliation of Mr. Baker, however, was not yet complete. As he went down the steps a man in blue serge approached him. I could not hear the exchange of words, but judging from Mr. Baker’s face they must not have been pleasing. He was lofty and indignant by turns. The man in blue serge however was insistent and imperturbable.
Mr. Baker, followed by his wife, came back through the doors. He looked at Mr. Carr with a real and heartfelt dislike. He opened his mouth like that of a trout lying on a river bank.
“I regret,” he was even suffer than before, “that I have been ordered to remain under your roof. I may say that this, after your remarks, is most unpleasing to me, and I have tried to persuade that interfering busybody that my wife’s health is at stake. However, there does not seem to be any help for it. I regret that I will have to intrude upon your hospitality for a further term. I can only say that I hope it will be short.”
“That’s O.K. by me, cock,” said Mr. Ben Carr, “I told you you could stay as long as you liked. If you’d asked me I’d have told you too that the cops wouldn’t let you go. They won’t let me go. I’ve had to import my wife and children.”
Mr. Baker did not seem pacified. He had a flush on his face which was rather reminiscent of that around the wattles of a turkey-cock.
“Come off it, son,” it was the Professor, “an’ ha’ a drink. It’ll do ye good, an’ I’m sure ye need it.” He hoisted himself out of the rocking-chair and bowed politely to Mrs. Baker, “Will ye ha’ a seat an’ a drink, ma’am?”
For a moment she looked as though she would accept the Professor’s offer, but she glanced sideways at her husband as if waiting for him to tell her what she should do.
“No, thank you,” Mr. Baker was abrupt, “we will go to our room. I suppose these policemen,” he said it in a way that suggested that they were a new and unknown phenomenon, “will allow me to go out to eat?”
“Sure, cock,” said Mr. Carr. The Bakers, with him still carrying the suitcases, went towards the stairs. The old man shook his head heavily. His grey hair wagged heavily on top. He seemed to me to be hiding a desire to laugh. He waited until the Bakers were out of sight and then he grinned broadly.
“Did ye ever see the like?” he asked. “Ye’d ha’ thought that neither o’ them had ever come across the police before, except in the way o’ subscribin’ to police orphanages an’ so on. They got what I’ve always wanted to have, a kinda real stiff dignity. If ye’d put me in their position I’d ha’ started ragin’ an’ rantin’ like a blessed heathen. I’m afraid I ain’t got the right way of behaving.” He looked rather sorrowful but cheered quickly. “On the other hand, I got a scientific an’ a mechanical mind, an’ I was wonderin’ about the bell here. Who fixed it up?”
Mr. Carr looked at him vaguely. “The bell?” he said. “The bell? Oh, yes. That’s been there ever since I can remember. I suppose it was fixed whenever they fitted electricity into this house. Aunt Lottie was very proud of the bell. When I was a nipper she used to let me press it. She used to give me a drink when I wanted it. There was none of that modern stuff about Aunt Lottie. She was an old reprobate and she’d have liked all her nephews and nieces to be the same. I don’t know what it was that got into her about Roland. I suppose he must have done something to annoy her, because she never seemed to mind his scrounging from her. She didn’t mind anyone scrounging from her, if it comes to that. She would grumble a bit about the hardships of running a hotel where no one bothered to pay their bills, but she never did anything about them. To tell you the truth, I knew the old girl was rich, but I never knew she was as blessed rich as I seem to be now. I suppose she must have had a lot of people who always paid their bills and who paid for the bottles of wine which had been drunk by those who couldn’t afford to pay—like me, for instance. I sa
y,” he suddenly became brightly animated, “I’ve been looking in the cellar. I hadn’t looked there since I was a kid, when old Arthur used to take me in to collect bottles with him. It has certainly gone down a bit since those days, but there’s still enough booze left to give the devil of a good party. What do you think of that for an idea?”
Professor Stubbs looked at him gravely. “Meself,” he said, “I think it is the hell o’ a good idea. I like parties. But we’ll wait for this one till we got the case cleared up.”
When the old man said he liked parties he was understating the facts. He adores parties with the adoration that some people keep for the ballet. The mere thought of a party drives him wild. I sigh myself at the thought of a party where the Professor is to be among those present. It always leads to trouble, and usually to trouble which hits me below the belt.
Mr. Carr got up and collected the tankards from the table. He took them down the corridor to replenish them. While I do not mind taking in a considerable amount of beer during the course of a day, I have one of those stomachs which also requires to engulf a certain amount of food: I may say that I had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and while that had been a largish meal, I could now feel my backbone rubbing against my navel. It is not a feeling which I can recommend.
I made a faint and probably weak suggestion to the old man that we should retire somewhere and have something to fill the voids in our insides. He dismissed this idea, imperiously, pointing out that beer filled us and that it was also a kind of food. I began to feel very unhappy.