The Great Wash

by Gerald Kersh

  “Yet you went down into that well after Monty Cello,” I said. “Went down without hesitation, George.”

  “I know. In the first place, I am the lightest weight and (yourself excepted) strongest in the arms. In the second place, which is more important, Chatterton was watching, don’t you see—and, as I told you, this is not the time to give Chatterton the advantage of knowing where to find the flaw in the iron.”

  “George,” I said, “once and for all; will you or will you not, as man to man, give me some little clue as to what is in your mind concerning Chatterton and Kadmeel?”

  He sighed, and said: “All right, old friend. I wanted to find out what was in Kurt Brevis’s papers first, as I told you. But fair’s fair, Albert; I’ll tell you on one condition—that you don’t laugh at me, and you don’t write me off as crazy if by some chance I prove to be wrong. For my part, if I am not right, you may spit in my face and call me horse. Is that fair?”

  “Go on,” I said.

  And then Mrs. Rose came out, equipped for her journey home, wearing a man’s straw boater painted black and held in place by a great hat-pin decorated at the head with a papier mâché plum, and carrying a canvas shopping bag which was never quite full but never empty. She said: “Gentleman by the name of Halfacre to see you, Mr. Oaks.”

  “It’ll have to wait, I’m afraid, Albert,” said George Oaks. “Show him out here, Moon of my Delight.”

  “Oh, damn, damn it all!” I said.

  “Calm, calm,” said George Oaks, as Chief Inspector Halfacre, accompanied by a bigger man in ginger Harris tweeds, came crunching down the path to the summer-house.

  Writers of crime fiction may have led you to assume that any detective worthy of the name must look like something else: he must live in dressing-gowns, be slender, have a nose for fine tobacco and a palate for good wine, know the difference between a drypoint and a mezzotint, have eccentricities, talk superior, and be able to distinguish a Dionysian tetra-drachm by touch in the dark. If he happens to be a gluttonous orchid-fancier, a jaw-bopping three-bottle-of-rye man, a violin-playing cocaine addict, a marasmic dandy who clips his English and rolls his own cigarettes with Bull Durham which he carries loose in his waistcoat pocket—so much the better. It is just as well if he happens to be a Belgian with funny moustaches, or a pimpish Greek with a temperamental wife, or a satanic blond man who has a superhuman capacity for bourbon and bullets and is reluctantly compelled to knock somebody’s teeth down his throat in every other chapter. He may also be afflicted with locomotor ataxia, and play with bits of string in tea shops; or he may be a priest, a stupid-looking priest with dull grey eyes, of course, and a gampish umbrella. In peacetime, he may even be a Japanese who will clap the Nami-Juji on a felon five times his size before you could say “Jack Diamond”, or an obese Chinaman who quotes Confucius. Anything quaint, anything out of character, anything but a policeman! (I find myself paraphrasing Oaks again. I echoed his howl of delight when Mr. S. S. Van Dyne, having been appointed honorary chief of police of a small town, had to call in Ellis Parker to solve a perfectly obvious murder-problem.)

  In point of fact, a detective carries with him the stigmata of his profession, the same as a soldier, a doctor, or a barrister. Remember; he must have spent his formative years in uniform, obedient to ineluctable discipline. He is moulded to a certain habit of carriage and of speech. He must be cautious—he may leap at anything but a conclusion—he may be thrown out of any place but a court of law—he must be educated in extreme circumspection, so that his case will withstand the siege of a Birkett, a Liebowitz, or a de Moro-Giafferi. As for kimonos, etchings, vintage wines, and what-not; he can’t afford them. He has to answer for every penny that he lays out on his expense account—and he must prove himself worthy before he is trusted with five shillings. He very properly despises the Old Man In The Corner, who can tell a good story but can’t make evidence in a report.

  Chief Inspector Halfacre was a big, stiff-backed man who must have been quite handsome before he took to boxing thirty years previous, when he was runner-up for the heavyweight championship of the Metropolitan Police. Now he had a nose like half a banana, and a thickened ear, for heavyweight policemen fight rough, especially when they fight for fun and let themselves go. These little deformities lent distinction to a face which, without them, would have been nondescript. He still carried himself as if he might have felt more comfortable in a tight silver-buttoned tunic—something like an old soldier on leave—so that the tail of his austerely-cut, well-worn flannel jacket crept up over his prominent backside. In spite of the heat of the afternoon he wore a high, starched collar and a heavy-looking brown homburg. His companion in the ginger tweeds must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. He was one of those rotund, tight-packed, Mongolian-looking men that always appear to be a little too big for their skins. Halfacre introduced him gruffly as Sergeant Bollard, and then said: “Well, George, what’s it all about?”

  “You’re a couple of hours too late, I’m afraid,” said Oaks. “Did you ever hear of ‘Lippy’ Orsini?”

  “Yank gangster, isn’t he? What about him?”

  “We had him here, that’s why I called you. He was in the country on a fake passport under the name of Monty Cello.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, I’m sorry to say he’s dead,” said George Oaks. “Accidentally. He fell down the well.”

  Sergeant Bollard had a notebook on his knee, and I could see by the jumping and jerking of his ball-point pen that he was writing in shorthand. “Well?” said the Chief Inspector.

  “That’s right,” said George Oaks. “Well.”

  “Don’t be funny, George; I’m not in the mood. Why didn’t you get in touch with the police at Brighthaven? This was supposed to be my day off.”

  “I’m sorry, Halfacre. How’s the garden? How are those Japanese azaleas I gave you?”

  “Very nice, thank you. Well?”

  “I didn’t get in touch with the local police, Halfacre, because this fellow was big stuff and he was behaving as if his life was in danger.”

  “ ‘Lippy’ Orsini, eh? Fake passport under the name of Monty Cello, you say. How do you know?”

  “He told us.”

  “Just like that, eh? How long had you known him?”

  “A few hours only.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  George Oaks said: “Be a good fellow and bring out the beer, Albert.”

  When I came back with the jar and four glasses, the Chief Inspector was saying: “If I didn’t know you, George, I’d have a good mind to punch you right on top of the nose! You pick up this feller at the Savoy, he tells you he’s a notorious gangster, carrying forged papers, and then he falls down a well. What was the idea, him telling you all this, eh George?”

  “Halfacre, a drowning man clutches at a straw. As it happens, I was that straw. I told you, Monty Cello was in fear of his life. He felt safe with Albert and me. There was no one else he dared to trust, and being at the end of his tether, he trusted us.”

  “Well, it could be. But why was this man in bodily fear, and of whom? Did he say?”

  “Yes,” said George Oaks. “You know Major Chatterton, Lord Kadmeel’s man? Well, Monty Cello was afraid of him.”

  “And why?”

  “It seems that Chatterton had in his possession evidence that could convict Monty Cello of a double murder in Saratoga, New York. Also, Monty Cello had possession of some papers that Chatterton very much wanted to get hold of. And shall I tell you to whom these papers belonged? To the mathematical physicist, Kurt Brevis.”

  “‘You haven’t been drinking, by any chance, George?”

  “I have always been drinking, Halfacre, and propose to go on doing so. . . . Listen to this. Kurt Brevis, as you know, is missing. I can tell you where to find him. Get on the wire, and you�
��ll find that a man named Rheingold was buried in the Holy Grace Cemetery near Narragut Key in Florida earlier this year. That man was Kurt Brevis. You’ll find that his face was altered, built up with plastics. Most likely they embalmed him—he had a few hundred dollars, and the Yanks are pretty hot on embalming—and they’ll find enough of his fingers to make a clear print or two, plenty to identify Kurt Brevis. What do you say to that?”

  “Nothing. Now, where does Major Chatterton come into this?”

  “Halfacre, that’s something we’ve got to learn, don’t you see. I can tell you this, upon my honour: in one way or another, Chatterton is in it deep, very deep. All you can do is, watch, Halfacre, watch like a cat. Albert and I will do what we can to help. I’ll let you know anything we find out.”

  “Rheingold, you said. Where did he die?”

  “He died of a thrombosis at the Pompano Hotel, Narragut Key, Florida, and is buried in the Holy Grace Cemetery nearby.”

  “This on information received from ‘Lippy’ Orsini, alias Monty Cello, in England on a snide passport . . . Got that, Bollard?” Sergeant Bollard nodded. “All right, George, Rheingold, you say, was an alias of Dr. Brevis, the atom-man; is that right?”

  “Quite right, Halfacre. Check, and you’ll find out. And you’ve got to check, you know.”

  “I know all about that,” said the Chief Inspector, ungraciously. “Now you’ve got it into your head that Major Chatterton was after this man ‘Lippy’ Orsini, or Monty Cello, for some information which Orsini, or Cello, was in a position to give him. Is that it?”

  “That’s it,” said George Oaks.

  “This information, presumably, was got by the dead man from Dr. Brevis, I take it?”

  “Just so, Halfacre.”

  “Any idea as to the nature of this information, George?”

  “It had something to do with some researches Brevis had made into some new application of atomic energy, I believe.”

  “Any idea what for?”

  “It might be for some new industrial process, seeing that Chatterton is employed by Lord Kadmeel. But to deal plainly with you, Halfacre, I only think I know what for, and I’m not going to tell you what I think. If I did, I might find myself in a padded cell. As I have indicated,” said Oaks, “I’m giving you facts to work on, and nothing more. Because if I told you everything that is in my mind, and you happened to let your imagination get hooked by what I implied, you’d get yourself into trouble, and to no purpose. Therefore, I’m giving you nothing but demonstrable fact for the moment.”

  Chief Inspector Halfacre said: “Demonstrable fact, eh? Let’s hope so. We’ll soon find out. All right, then. Assuming ‘Lippy’ Orsini, or Monty Cello as you say he called himself, got information of a scientific nature from Dr. Brevis. It’d have to be in writing, wouldn’t it? It stands to reason that it’d have to be some kind of facts and figures in black and white, I mean. In other words, if that were the case, there’d be papers.”

  “Must be,” said George Oaks.

  “You say you went over him,” said Halfacre. “Well?”

  “As I told you before, there was a money-belt, a wallet and a passport, which Constable Hobson gave to Mr. Syd at the Hither Valley Hotel for safekeeping. While you’re here, Halfacre, I suggest that you pick them up.”

  Chief Inspector Halfacre made a noise expressive of extreme exasperation and said: “Damn you, I wish you’d fall down dead! I’ll have to do that through Brighthaven, you bloody nuisance, you!”

  “Why? You have authority to act off your own bat in an affair of this nature, haven’t you? A forged passport is reason enough, surely? . . . Oh, and I forgot to tell you that Monty Cello’s papers were faked by Pen Quillan, of New York . . . Better get that down, Sergeant Bollard . . . Pen Quillan was got at by Chatterton, or one of Chatterton’s agents. When your people contact the other side, I haven’t the slightest doubt that Pen Quillan will be induced to talk a little, especially when he finds that he’s involved himself up to the back teeth in the Kurt Brevis affair. There’s another demonstrable fact for you. Simply come along to the Hither Valley, therefore, and show your card, and collect Monty Cello’s passport, etcetera. Circumstances warrant it.”

  “Well, all right,” said Chief Inspector Halfacre. “We’ll have a look. Now what about the rest of this fellow’s things?”

  “They’re upstairs in his room,” I said. “Two suitcases and a smaller bag. Monty Cello travelled light.”

  “Might as well go through ’em while we’re about it,” said Halfacre.

  George Oaks said: “I’ve a better idea than that. To give a man’s luggage a thorough going-over takes time. I suggest that you sit tight and let somebody else do that for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, Monty Cello’s luggage will be left unguarded in Albert’s house tonight, and I’m willing to lay you any odds you like that somebody is going to break in and go through the deceased’s effects with a fine-tooth comb. To be honest with you, Halfacre, I contrived it so that Albert and I would be staying with Mr. Syd for the night, just to give the interested parties a chance to show their hand. I pretended to be upset by the idea of a dem’d damp corpse in the house. We’re in deep water, Halfacre.” He looked in the direction of the well, and shivered a little.

  “Well?” said Halfacre.

  “Well,” said George Oaks, “I suggest that you and the Sergeant here keep a close watch on Albert’s house tonight while he and I create a diversion down at the Hither Valley. Sure as eggs, there’ll be monkey business here, and if you play your cards right you’re bound to get some kind of lead, don’t you see?”

  Chief Inspector Halfacre laughed shortly, and said: “You’d stake my professional reputation on that, eh George? Don’t be silly. Do you seriously expect me and Bollard to stick around in Mr. Kemp’s house all night on your absolutely unfounded suspicion of an attempted burglary by a person or persons unknown? Why don’t you try and be your age, George? If you’re so set on the idea, why don’t you and Mr. Kemp double back to the house yourselves and keep your own watch, having tipped off the local police?”

  “Because one thing is certain, that is, from now on Albert and I will be watched,” said Oaks.

  “If that’s the case,” said Halfacre, “what about Bollard and me? At least a dozen people watched us coming along from the station——”

  “—I saw at least three peeping through curtains, sir,” said Sergeant Bollard, without looking up from his notebook.

  “—Added to which, there’s the old lady that works here. Half the village will be buying her bottles of stout tonight, and she’ll tell them everything down to the colour of my eyes. No, that won’t wash, George. The best you might do would be to pass the tip to the local police and advise ’em to keep their eyes open.”

  “You know best,” said George Oaks.

  “Thank you. . . . Another little thing: what leads you to suspect that these papers, if at all, might be looked for in this party’s luggage? You told me just now, when Mr. Kemp went to get the beer (I’ll help myself to a little more, if I may), that Major Chatterton and Sir Peter Oversmith were present when you handed the money-belt, etcetera, to the constable. What leads you to assume that this man would keep papers of any importance in his suitcase, rather than on his person? His money, passport, and whatnot are in the safe at the Hither Valley Hotel, you say. Well then, why not recommend us first of all to keep an eye on the hotel? Well?”

  George Oaks sighed and said: “Haven’t I already suggested that you go to the Hither Valley Hotel and pick up Monty Cello’s papers?”

  “That’s right,” said Halfacre, “you did suggest that. But the way I look at it, George: it stands to reason that the likeliest place for a man on the run to keep documents is, next to his skin. Isn’t it? . . . Well?”

  “I think
I indicated that Monty Cello was a very frightened man,” said George Oaks. “He might, therefore, have hidden his papers almost anywhere, mightn’t he? You ought to know something of how such minds operate, Halfacre. At a certain psychological moment, your crook may squeal; a little while later, especially after a few hours’ sleep, he retracts everything he has said. It might have been like that with Monty Cello . . . might have been, I say.”

  “Did you actually see these papers?” asked the Chief Inspector, turning suddenly to me.

  “Eh?” I said. “Are you speaking to me, Inspector? . . . Yes, Monty Cello showed us some papers, but what papers I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “When?”

  “Why, last night, in the sitting-room,” I said.

  “Well, where did he have them, then, last night, in the sitting-room? In his pocket, for instance?”

  “No,” I said. “If I remember rightly, he took them out of his money-belt.”

  “If you remember rightly, this man took papers out of his money-belt. If you remember rightly,” said Chief Inspector Halfacre; and his face twisted itself into an expression such as I have seen on the face of a certain famous musician when I came out of his bathroom still singing The Last Round-up.

  “That’s right,” I said, clipping my words. “—Or do you want me simply to answer Yes or No.”

  “Oh, I’m not trying to cross-examine you,” said Halfacre. “I’m just asking a civil question, Mr. Kemp. You dragged me into this business, remember——”

  “—I did not!”

  “—when I might just as well have spent the afternoon in my garden. You know that piece of poetry that begins ‘A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot’? Do you know the rest of it, by the way? You and George are always spouting poetry—I’d meant to ask you. I thought of cutting it on a bit of stone and putting it up inside the gate. . . . About these papers. You saw them, I take it, Mr. Kemp? Beg pardon, of course you did; you just told me so. Get me on to poetry, and I run on and on. Could you give me any kind of description of these papers George keeps talking about?”