Settling Scores

by Martin Edwards

  This dry-eyed grief was more affecting than the hysteria Quarles had expected. He said to her, “Did you see him after he left Briffitt’s office today?”

  She shook her head. “I had lunch, then went to a masseuse this afternoon. She worked on my ankle—I had only turned it, as they say, not sprained it—she was able to put it right.” While she spoke she continued to look at the body on the floor.

  Now the door opened again, and Briffitt’s clipped, cultured voice could be heard. “Hallo, Dobson. What’s been going on?”

  He came into the room without waiting for an answer, took one look at the body on the floor, and bent down to examine it. After a couple of minutes he straightened up.

  “Shot from behind, distance of six or seven feet I should say, killer stood near the door, Foldes was on the telephone. Agree?” He glanced at Quarles.

  The detective nodded. “This scrap of paper was in his hand.”

  Briffitt looked at it. “Killer presumably tore the rest away. Doctor Foldes’ writing, isn’t it? Doesn’t help us much, as it stands.”

  “Mr. Briffitt,” Rita said hesitantly, “what about Jimmy? He is—well, I mean, how is he mixed up in this? Did the man who killed my brother kidnap Jimmy from Wimbledon?”

  Briffitt looked at her almost with pity. “Miss Foldes, this is a day of shocks. I may as well tell you now that nobody kidnapped Jimmy Clayton. He walked out of his own free will.”

  They sat in Briffitt’s flat again, Quarles and Rita Foldes and Ronny Dobson, Victorian conversation pieces, English and Italian decadents looking down on them mockingly, while the dapper, rosy-faced little man smoked one of his black cigarettes and talked about Jimmy Clayton.

  “Let me make this clear, first of all. Jimmy Clayton is a nice normal young man. He is in love with a beautiful girl, he likes playing tennis. But there are two other things about him that we must remember. The first is that he loves playing practical jokes. The second is that he worships his older brother Ralph.”

  They sat listening to him, Ronny Dobson with fingers plucking at his mauve waistcoat, Rita clasping and unclasping her black handbag, Francis Quarles with closed eyes, his bulk extended in an armchair.

  “Here is the sequence of events. On Monday morning Jimmy Clayton receives a telephone call from Ralph. I think it’s safe to assume that Ralph fixed a place of meeting, and told Jimmy that for obvious reasons he mustn’t be followed.

  “Easy enough, you may say. But not so easy, in fact. Supposing Ralph suggested a meeting at six o’clock, Jimmy had to play his match with Gladkov. Then he had to escape from autograph hunters and get rid of Bobo Williams. You’ve seen Bobo for yourself, you know what he’s like. He was determined to have a talk with Jimmy after the match, and no amount of persuasion would have stopped him. Even outside the ground, Jimmy Clayton would have been recognised. After all, just at the moment, he is a pretty famous young man. So he decided to play one of those practical jokes which as everybody who knew him well told me, he enjoyed so much. He decided to disappear for the evening.”

  A little sharply, Briffitt said to the apparently sleeping detective, “Do you agree, Quarles?”

  Francis Quarles opened one eye. “So far, yes,” he said, and closed it again.

  “Don’t you think this was just the childish kind of practical joke that appealed to Jimmy?” Briffitt asked Rita.

  “Yes. But I still don’t see how he did it.”

  Briffitt stroked his moustache. “It was simple. He arrived with a zipper bag which contained a spare suit of clothes, a blond wig, and probably a false moustache. After the match he told Bobo Williams he was going to take a shower.

  “He went into the bathroom, changed his clothes, put on the wig and moustache, deliberately made those misleading scratches on the window sill, dropped his zipper bag out of the window, came out of the bathroom, and walked out of the dressing room unnoticed. As Colonel Macaulay said, a watch is kept on people coming into the dressing room, but no similar watch is kept on those going out. Once outside, he simply picked up his bag and strolled off. Are we still in agreement, Quarles?”

  “Yes,” the detective answered lazily, from the depth of his chair. “Those hairs must somehow have come off the wig when he was putting it on—it’s easy to distinguish real hair from false. The zipper bag Clayton brought with him had vanished. And it was much too great a coincidence that he should have picked just the one bathroom which had a window from which something could easily be dropped into a quiet passage outside. That wasn’t accident but intention.”

  “Fascinating,” Ronny Dobson said. “And what happened next?”

  Briffitt looked at the tip of his cigarette. “We don’t know. That is, we don’t exactly know, yet it’s not merely a matter of guesswork. Jimmy Clayton went to meet his brother. What happened when they met? Why did Ralph telephone at all? Remember Doctor Foldes had vanished on Sunday night, and the telephone call came on Monday morning.

  “There’s only one possible answer. Ralph was here as a secret emissary, to persuade Doctor Foldes to go home—or perhaps to take him home by force. Something went wrong with his plan. He was in need of help. Who should he turn to but the young brother who worshipped him? Are you still with me?”

  “No,” Quarles said from the depth of his armchair. Briffitt ignored him.

  “When Ralph saw his brother he must have made an appeal for help. ‘Help me and Foldes to get away. If you don’t I’m done for. I shall have to stand trial.’ Something on those lines.

  “So Jimmy Clayton was faced with a terrible choice. On the one side was love for his brother, on the other the desire to play at Wimbledon. What arguments Ralph used to persuade him that this wasn’t just a conspiracy to smuggle Doctor Foldes back into his own country I don’t know. We only know that he stayed—he stayed to help. And when he did that he crossed the Rubicon.” With a final, decisive gesture Briffitt stubbed out his cigarette.

  “You mean he’s not in England any more?” Dobson asked.

  “I should say it’s almost certain that Ralph and Jimmy Clayton are now behind the Iron Curtain, mission accomplished.”

  “And my father?” Rita Foldes asked.

  “My dear Miss Foldes, I am sorry to say it, but in a couple of weeks we shall probably hear of him as another Doctor Otto John, attacking Western corruption, and back in his country’s Communist-controlled but now slightly pseudo-Liberal government.”

  Quarles opened his eyes. “You seem to have omitted the murder of this young lady’s brother.”

  “Charles Foldes?” Briffitt sighed. “Naturally there are still agents left in London, watching all of us—the note I received was sufficient proof of that. Charles Foldes discovered something, got in their way, and was removed.”

  “Poppycock.” Now Francis Quarles, lethargy forgotten, was on his feet, striding up and down the room, talking with bitter, powerful emphasis. “Absolute rubbish, Briffitt, and if you weren’t so blinded by your own conceit you’d know it.”

  Briffitt’s rosy colour was a little heightened. “You agree with my explanation of Jimmy Clayton’s disappearance—”

  “Of course. It was obvious that he was playing some sort of practical joke. But the rest of it—I put this very question of yours to his mother, to Bobo Williams, and to Miss Foldes here, and they all agreed that nothing on earth would stop Jimmy from playing his men’s singles semifinal.” He whirled on Dobson. “What do you say?”

  That elegant young man plucked at his mauve waistcoat a little uncertainly. “He’s very fond of Ralph. But I know he was keen on tennis. I just don’t know which he would do.”

  The telephone rang. Briffitt answered it. He said “Yes” three times, and then, “I’ll come at once.” He put back the receiver and stood looking at them, with the rosy colour entirely gone from his face.

  “Well?” Quarles said.

  “That was Inspector Leeds. They’ve found a body down in the docks. They think it may be Doctor Foldes.”

  They d
rove down to the docks under a darkening sky, with few words spoken. Quarles sat hunched in a corner of the car, his heavy face broodingly intent. Briffitt scraped at his nails with a nail file. Ronny Dobson whispered what were obviously comforting words to Rita Foldes who sat upright, paying no attention to any of them.

  They passed the place where the taxi had dropped Doctor Foldes on Sunday night, and turned off into a side road. Warehouses reared their menacing bulk on either side, uninterrupted by houses. The street seemed utterly deserted, until a burly figure stepped out from the shadows and raised a hand.

  It was Inspector Leeds. A sergeant was with him. They walked along the street in the dark evening, under thin rain, while the Inspector explained in a low voice what had happened.

  “Street’s all warehouses up this end, but there were houses at the other. Caught a packet in one of the raids on the docks, nothing much left now. Old air raid shelter there that you’ll see in a minute. Stinking dirty place it is—been shut up for years.

  “You know what kids are, though, they’ll get in and play anywhere. This afternoon some kids playing cops and robbers down there came across this body. Might not have been found for months.”

  Quarles said, “Miss Foldes has very courageously offered to come down to look at the body.”

  They turned off the street onto waste ground. In a voice carefully devoid of feeling Rita Foldes said, “Are you sure it is my father?”

  “Not sure, miss. We think so.” The Inspector paused. “It’s not very pretty.”

  “I did not expect so,” she said, with the same artificial composure.

  “Here we are.” Another figure emerged in the light of the sergeant’s torch. It was a policeman who said, “All correct, sir.”

  They went in, guided by two torches, past a wooden barrier and then down a sloping tunnel, which widened out at the bottom into a kind of central room from which four passages led off. Dust and dirt were everywhere, with odds and ends of clothing and scraps of old iron that had been left there at different times, broken saucepans and battered washbasins and bits of bicycles.

  “Second left,” the Inspector said. They made some turns in this passage and came upon the body of a man, stuffed into a small alcove that had once probably housed bunks for sleepers.

  “Now just a minute, miss,” the Inspector said, but Rita Foldes had already run forward to the body.

  “Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes, yes.”

  “You confirm that it’s your father, miss?”

  “It is my father,” she said, and turned away.

  Ronny Dobson put an arm round her and escorted her back along the dark tunnel. The sergeant stayed with them.

  “Cause of death?” Briffitt said, in a weary voice.

  “We shall have to wait for the doctor’s final opinion,” the Inspector said. “But I don’t think there’s any doubt. He was hit on the head with something heavy and it fractured his skull. Must have happened near here. Then the murderer brought him down here and dumped him in the shelter.”

  “How does this fit in with your theory that Foldes would reappear as a puppet Minister?” Quarles asked Briffitt.

  The little counterespionage man made no reply.

  They dropped Rita Foldes at the flat of a friend of Quarles, a woman doctor named Mary James, with whom she was to spend the night. Quarles went in with her and spoke to the doctor.

  “Mary, Miss Foldes has had some terrible shocks today. She needs a sedative. But there’s a question I want to ask her first. May I do that?”

  Mary James was neat, bright, and birdlike. “Just one question.”

  Quarles put his hands on the girl’s shoulders. “My dear girl, I know what you have been through. I wouldn’t ask you things tonight unless it were vitally necessary. Jimmy’s life may depend on it. Now, can you remember any place where Jimmy and Ralph used to go when they were children and on holiday, and you came over to see them?”

  “Any house, do you mean?”

  Quarles made an expansive gesture. “A house, a mill, a cottage—somewhere that was their own particular place.”

  She said despairingly, “I can’t think, I just can’t think.” She put her head in her hands.

  “You must leave it at that,” Doctor James said.

  Quarles nodded, concealing his disappointment. “If you think of anything, anything at all, telephone me at once.” He said to Doctor James, “Take good care of her, Mary.”

  On the way home Quarles bought the latest editions of the evening papers. CLAYTON MYSTERY DEEPENS, he read in one, and in another, CLAYTON SCRATCHED FROM DOUBLES. STARS TELL OF DRESSING ROOM DISAPPEARANCE. There followed the story of how Joe Richards had helped Bobo Williams search the dressing room. Quarles read the story, and cursed Bobo Williams.

  As he turned into the entrance of his flat, four figures suddenly advanced on him from both sides of the entrance. The happenings of the day had been such that his hand dropped to the hip pocket where he kept his gun. But these were no more dangerous characters than reporters in search of news. They fired a fusillade of questions.

  “Is there any news on Clayton?”

  “Can you say whether he’ll play tomorrow?”

  “Is it true Clayton’s been involved in a car accident?”

  “Been kidnapped by the Russians?”

  “Lost his memory and wandered off somewhere on the South Coast?”

  “Boys, boys,” Quarles said placatingly. “I can tell you the answer to all those questions. I just don’t know where Jimmy Clayton is. Happy?”

  They were not happy. “Does that mean he’s disappeared and you’ve been engaged to find him?”

  “Ask Mrs. Clayton.”

  “She won’t say. That’s what Bobo Williams tells us.”

  “If you think you can rely on Bobo Williams—” Quarles said with a chuckle.

  “Mr. Quarles, if you’ve not been engaged to find Clayton, why won’t your secretary answer questions?”

  “That’s one of the things I pay her for, boys—not answering questions. Good night.”

  Quarles looked out of the window of his flat and saw that the reporters were talking together. Then two of them settled down in front of his flat, while the other two went off. Taking turns, Quarles thought, and chuckled again. Then he telephoned Mrs. Clayton, and asked her the same question he had put to Rita Foldes.

  “I can’t think of anything,” she said. “At that time we had a large house called Roking Place in Kent, near Maidstone. The boys used to spend the summer there, and friends came over to see them. But we sold it years ago—it was an enormous, rambling old place—I don’t think there’s anything in that. Mr. Quarles, is there any news? Is Jimmy all right?”

  Quarles chose his words carefully. “He is in danger, but I hope that somebody will show us the way to him.”

  “Will that be soon?”

  “Perhaps tomorrow.”

  The telephone call that brought the case to a climax came sooner than Quarles had expected.

  It was just after half-past nine in the morning, and the newspapermen had trailed him from flat to office, when he heard Rita Foldes’ anxious voice.

  “Mr. Quarles? I have news for you. It is perhaps of some use, I do not know. When I was a girl we used to come and stay sometimes with the Claytons at a house named Roking Place.”

  “But that was sold a long time ago. Mrs. Clayton told me about it.”

  “Yes. But it has been empty now for two years. Ronny came in this morning to see me, and we talked. He told me this.”

  “Miss Foldes, can you be ready in fifteen minutes to come with me to Roking Place? Are you equal to it? This is important.”

  Over the telephone she whispered, “Yes.”

  “Molly, listen to me,” Quarles said to his secretary. “Ring Briffitt and tell him to get down to a house called Roking Place, near Maidstone, as quickly as he can. Tell him it’s life or death. He must bring some men with him. I suppose he’ll have to tell Leeds. But first of all,
go and open the doors of that lift as if you were going down in it.”

  Molly did what she was told, watched with interest by the two reporters outside the office door. At the instant the lift doors opened Quarles came out of his office like a runner in a hundred-yard sprint. He had pressed the button taking him down to the basement before the reporters had begun to rush down the stairs.

  From the basement he let himself out of the caretaker’s door, and went to the garage where he kept the black and green Bentley which he hardly ever used for driving in London.

  Rita Foldes was waiting for him, and with her was Mary James, a disapproving look on her face. “You’ve no right to be taking this girl out, after what she’s been through,” she said.

  “Mary, if her presence wasn’t vitally important to the case I shouldn’t ask her to come.”

  Rita Foldes was in the car before all these words were spoken. Her face was pale, and she wore no lipstick.

  It is a tedious journey from the north side of the river to the point at which the Sidcup bypass is reached, and Quarles generally reckoned that it took half an hour. On this occasion, by avoiding the Elephant and going down the back streets which skirt the Old Kent Road, he did it in twenty-two minutes.

  Once on the main road to Maidstone the Bentley moved with effortless ease at a speed which made almost no allowance for other traffic on the road. Rita Foldes said once, “You are driving dangerously. Or it would be dangerous with most drivers. Is that necessary?”

  Quarles shot the Bentley forward into the gap between an oncoming truck and a car just moving out to pass. They cleared the two by inches. “Yes.”

  “You expect to find—?”

  “I expect to find Jimmy Clayton. Tell me where to turn off.”

  “Beyond Wrotham. There is a turning that takes you to Mereworth. Then Wateringbury. After that a narrow lane to the left. I will tell you.”

  They turned off down the Mereworth Road, and roared through the placid Kent countryside. “Here,” Rita said when they were a mile out of Wateringbury, and Quarles turned sharp left up a narrow road.

  “How far?”