Death for Madame

by Peter Main

  “I’m glad ye’re willin’ to see reason,” said the Professor, “for ye can just imagine the hell that the old man went through once he realised what he’d done. He came to his senses an’ dam’ nearly rang for the police, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d lived, as he said, respectable, all his life, an’ it was more than he could stand to think o’ the disgrace that he would suffer. So he just went back to his room, an’ lay down. He didn’t sleep. Then in the mornin’ when Lottie Rattigan’s will was read out, he was flabbergasted to find that the woman he’d killed had left him money. For years the old girl had bin usin’ her will as a kinda weapon an’ the result was that old Arthur Niven had ceased to believe in it. I rang up the man Smellman, who was, I may say, kinda snooty—wantin’ to know what business I had wantin’ to know thin’s—but I got out o’ him the information I wanted, which was that Arthur Niven was one o’ the very few people who were never omitted from her will, whatever she did with it. I am glad that the old man did not know that.”

  He hoisted himself heavily from the armchair and towered above us.

  “Dammit, Reggie,” he roared, looking down at the Chief Inspector, “Can ye not imagine the hell that man went through durin’ the few days followin’ his crime. He had killed a bit o’ himself when he killed her. He had, in fact, killed his power to love, an’ the death o’ that was the death o’ him. Oh, I know, it sounds as though I’m talkin’ high-falutin nonsense, but I’m not. I tell ye that I know the hell that Arthur Niven went through—I got a simple mind an’ I feel the way simple people do. The thought o’ the money that was comin’ to him from her will was, I guess, the final blow. Not only had he killed, but he had become, in his own eyes, a Judas Iscariot, makin’ money from his dirty deed.”

  I have rarely seen the Professor as vehement as he was then. The odd thing was that he somehow managed to impress us all with the feeling that he was right, and that none of us was in a position to condemn Arthur Niven.

  “Mind,” he said earnestly, “in standin’ up for Arthur Niven an’ tryin’ to show that his action was not a piece o’ senseless brutality, I’m not sayin’ anythin’ about Lottie Rattigan. She was what she was an’ the only time I saw her livin’ I liked her, even if she did get me mixed up wi’ someone else,” his brow clouded for a moment as he recalled the lavender silk combinations, “an’ ye must ha’ it clear in yer minds that never, so long as she lived, did she ha’ the least idea that the old man was lovin’ her, even in her gross old age, when she’d grown beyond love. He was seein’ her as he’d first seen her an’ time could not change the picture in his mind. He had no need o’ the poor tawdry miniature that Lottie gave to Annie Aspinall, for the picture he had was better painted an’ could only perish or be lost wi’ his own dissolution. An’, I’m quite sure, Lottie Rattigan never really realised that she was treatin’ the old man harshly. She didn’t need much sleep herself, an’ so she forgot that other people needed it. In thinkin’ o’ the deed o’ Arthur Niven, Reggie, ye’ve got to take into account, also, the fact that he was an old man, tired out an’ wantin’ nothin’ so much as the deep sleep which he was unable to get. That bell must ha’ come to be the most hated sound in the world, imperious as Lottie herself—an’ yet, perhaps, the old man didn’t hate it so much, for it gave him the chance o’ seein’ her. I’m not an alienist an’ I wouldn’t be able to pretend that I could start to tell ye about the workin’s o’ the human mind, but there is one thin’ I’m thunderin’ certain o’, an’ that is that whoever blames old Arthur Niven for his action should find himself in the same position—an’ mind ye it wasn’t a position that he’d endured for weeks or months, but one where he’d suffered for many years—an’ havin’ served these years in the galleys, let them think again.”

  He went noisily over to the beer barrel and stooped down to fill his quart mug and a couple of pints for Mr. Carr and me. The Chief Inspector savoured the remains of the brandy in his glass.

  “You know, John,” he said, “you should go on the stage. You almost made me believe that your story was true.”

  Professor Stubbs straightened up. I expected that he would be in a towering rage, but instead he was almost mild as he walked back towards the Chief Inspector, who looked up at him and said, “Where’s the proof of your story?”

  “Son,” the old man spoke almost regretfully, “one o’ these days ye’ll learn sense. Me ‘story’ as ye call it ain’t a story, but the truth. As for me proof, I’ve given it to ye. But, knowin’ that ye were a feller who wouldn’t believe anythin’ unless he saw it wi’ his own eyes, I got me a witness who’ll swear to it that what I ha’ told ye is in fact what he an’ I heard from the dyin’ man this afternoon. Ben, son, tell him he’s runnin’ away wi’ himself.”

  “Yes, old cock,” Mr. Carr addressed himself to the Chief Inspector, “the Prof’s right. I heard all that old Arthur said and it was just that way. And,” he looked at the Chief Inspector pugnaciously, “you can try and make me eat my words if you want to. That’s the truth, and nothing you can say can alter it. You’re finished if you start trying to say that Roland did the murder. Not,” he looked at the Bishop honestly, “that it can do Roland or his reputation any harm. But the Prof here’s my friend, and what he says goes, especially when I’ve heard it with my own ears and know it’s true.”

  The Chief Inspector knew when he was beaten. He smiled up at the old man.

  “Sorry, John,” he said. “I just had to make certain that you were telling the truth. You know, I wouldn’t have put it beyond you to rig up a complete theory like that just for the sake of fuddling me.”

  “Fuddlin’ ye? “asked the old man, “Dammit, Reggie, there’s nothin’ I could do which ’ud fuddle ye any more than ye are fuddled by nature. Ye see I told ye that ye had the important facts in yer mind an’ yer trouble is that you ain’t got a selective mind like me an’ so ye couldn’t see what was important an’ what wasn’t.”

  He grunted fiercely but I could see that he had forgiven the Chief Inspector for doubting the truth of his deduction.

  “Ye know,” he went on mildly, “that our trouble was that we were lookin’ at the will as the cause o’ the murder an’ that was what was leadin’ us astray. We were the people walkin’ in the Strand who saw the cab an’ didn’t realise that there was a naked man inside it.” I hastily explained this to the bewildered-looking Bishop. “I dunno how often I said I thought we were payin’ too much attention to the will. Right from the very beginnin’ the thin’ that worried me was not the will but the blinkin’ bell. I got a mechanical mind, as I keep tellin’ ye, an’ so, o’ course, I noticed the bell dingus on the table. An’, all the time, there’s bin a doubt naggin’ away in the back o’ me mind. I was thinkin’ that the bell was unholy close to Lottie Rattigan’s hand an’ I was wonderin’ why the hell she hadn’t pressed it. Ye know how it is, ye get an idea in the back o’ yer mind an’ it dam’ well won’t filter through to the front. It was only to-day that I kinda put that together wi’ the fact that Annie Aspinall had heard nothin’ out o’ the ordinary, an’ then, o’ course, the whole thin’ was as clear as daylight.” He turned threatening glares at the Chief Inspector. “But don’t ye go around sayin’ it was simple, Reggie, or I’ll ha’ to take measures to deal wi’ ye. Why, dammit, son, I’ll spiflicate ye.”

  The Chief Inspector grinned lazily. He stretched like a contented Persian cat.

  “All right, John,” he said, “I’ll let you win. But I must say that I hope there is no case in which you could possibly be interested for a very long time. It is all very well for you to go around looking mysterious, when you’ve got one asset I haven’t got. To everyone I meet I am one thing—the representative of the police—and I can be nothing else. But you can make friends with people and you can even, I believe, pervert the ends of justice to suit some ideas of your own on the subject. I’m not trying to belittle your cleverness, John, but only pointing out where you have a chance to find useful informati
on that is hidden from me.”

  “That’s fine,” said the old man cheerfully, “think what a pair we’ll make—ye wi’ the organisation an’ me wi’ the brains an’ the social behaviour. Ye should be glad I won me bet as it gives ye a first-class lieutenant who’ll always be ready to come an’ stand at yer side.”

  “May the good lord save me from that,” said the Chief Inspector in heartfelt tones. He rose and took his departure.

  “You did nicely there, cock,” said Mr. Carr, with the air of an old connoisseur. “You put it across them all right. I was just thinking that it was just as well that the Chief Inspector didn’t know that after he had told you his story old Arthur became too weak to repeat it all to me. If the fellow had known that I was only bluffing he might have refused to accept the story as the truth.”

  The old man looked at me guiltily. I frowned at him. Mr. Carr took in this exchange of glances.

  “Oh,” he said, “it’s all right, Prof, Max won’t split, will you, cock?”

  “No, I suppose I won’t,” I said, “but I told you, when I left you this afternoon, that I hoped you’d keep out of trouble, and it seems to me that it is only good luck that kept you out of it. I suppose, by the way, that the story about Arthur Niven is true, and that you didn’t just hatch it up as a means of beating the Bishop?”

  “Good Lor’, ye’re as bad as the Bishop,” the old man looked at me with astonishment, “refusin’ to believe what ye don’t have down clean in black an’ white. O’ course it’s true. D’ye really think that I’d do a thing like that to a poor old man not yet cold?” I said that I hoped he would not, and apologised for my attitude. All the same, I had to admit to myself that I thought the old man did enjoy a certain amount of luck in his cases. Thousands of cases would be quite beyond his scope, but when he wandered into a case it always seemed to be one that he could, by hook or by crook—and mostly by the latter—solve.

  “Thing that’s worryin’ me,” said Mr. Carr, “is that I got a look at the old man’s will before I left, and I found that the poor old boy had left all that he owned, and you’d be surprised how much he had saved, to Aunt Lottie. He hadn’t had time to change his will after he killed her, before he became too ill to deal with it. There seems to be something awfully unkind about this whirligig of money. You know I never really did like money, but I’m damned glad to find that money had nothing to do with Aunt Lottie’s death. If it had I think I would have got rid of it all and have gone back to being broke.”

  “Hell dammit, man,” the Professor looked seriously alarmed, “what ’ud ha’ happened to the party ye’re goin’ to give on the remains o’ the cellar? I’m lookin’ forward to that party, an’ don’t ye forget it. I kinda ha’ a hankerin’ after a good party wi’ plenty o’ booze an’ cheerful people. Don’t ye go givin’ away everythin’ till we’ve had that party, an’, anyhow, I kinda think it ’ud be a pity to close down The Boudoir. Ye’re as mad as yer aunt an’ ye’ll run it nicely.”

  “Thanks, cock,” said Mr. Carr gravely.

  Finis

  About the Author

  RUTHVEN CAMPBELL TODD (1914–1978) was a Scottish-born poet, scholar, art critic, and fantasy novelist who wrote a series of detective novels under the name R. T. Campbell.

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