In exactly the same way as I’d seen the reflected chandelier in the glass of the rotating hotel door.
“So in the end Marks managed to stop it twisting,” said Duxford. “I get it. And at that time the base, with the trapdoor stuck underneath, had turned through half a circle.”
George amplified. Nobody was going to leave him out. “So that the shed was back as it’d been, with its door to the fence — it was only the base that was backwards. Yes. And the trapdoor got itself put down alongside its frame, with the hinge edges together, and with the bolt upwards, as it’d been all the time. All right, so I concede it. The thing must’ve got bumped loose when the base was put down, and it’d be left just as we found it.”
“I did think,” I offered, “that it was probably the bolt, being on top, that got stuck in the concrete.”
“You’re right,” said George. “Of course. It makes sense of how the same gun could have been used for both murders. And how Marks got the money in the first place.”
“But it don’t tell us who Marks is,” Fingal bellowed. “Just a lot of bloody talk.”
His voice nearly drowned the growing, snarling roar that had been creeping in on us. Dyke lifted his head.
“My crane,” he said thickly. Then he was on his feet. “Somebody’s started my crane!”
He ran over to the window.
I hadn’t expected this. My gun was now loaded, as I’d expected Lubin to enter by way of the door. I began to speak quickly.
“We take it to a logical conclusion. This Marks is a thinker. He realises that there’s no possible way of getting that shed back still sitting the way it was, and without leaving it bolted down. He’d have an impossibility on his hands, a mysteriously disappeared Wallach. It’d rouse official interest. It had to be covered. So he had to give Wallach one way out — something that’d be accepted. It couldn’t be anything he himself could do from outside, because any sort of smashing of the window, say, would then appear to have been done from outside, and therefore not by Wallach. But the window was about all he’d got to work with, and it occurred to him that if he sent for two doubtful private detectives, and they decided Wallach had managed to get out of the window, leaving it apparently intact, then he’d be in the clear. We were given enough hints of how it could have been done.”
Dyke was at the window, shouting: “What’s he doing, the fool! What’s he up to!”
Until Cash pushed him aside.
“But we didn’t decide that,” I said, talking very fast now. “In fact, George wouldn’t have it. So Marks made his big mistake. He got over-anxious. He tried to provide evidence that the window had been used. But, you see, by that time we knew it hadn’t. We found out how he’d got out of there, which meant that the missing pane of glass from Cash’s garage was irrelevant, and was therefore a blind.”
“What?” shouted George.
The noise had reached a peak, the engine roar rising to a crescendo, and there were screams in the room. Dyke was ashen. He was shouting Clare’s name. I couldn’t see her.
George lowered his ear. “A blind, George,” I shouted.
There was a thump that shook the foundations. Cash’s bottles tinkled, and one fell out and rolled across the floor. Clare screamed as Dyke swooped her up and barged for the door. There was a mad scramble.
It was the reasoning that had led me to Dutch Marks. When we, or rather George, had refused to accept that Wallach had managed to get himself out of the window, there had been a confirmation of that possibility stuck under our noses — a pane missing from Cash’s garage. It therefore must have been removed especially for that purpose, to mislead us. But if that was the case, it was a very vague clue, unless it could be guaranteed that we would either notice it, or have it brought to our attention. And only Cash himself could guarantee that; only Cash would know that the panes were about the right size.
We watched Cash. He was howling something as he stumbled across the room. The next crash was closer. Plaster came crumbling down and the light fitting slipped. A settee began to move across the sloping floor.
“Let’s get outa here!” Duxford yelled.
“He tried to ferret-out Dyke’s address,” George shouted, remembering.
“And it’s here that Lubin’s come,” I pointed out.
There was plaster in George’s hair. He grinned. The air was thick with dust. “I had an idea you’d phone him. It was why I hung on to Cash.”
“Because he played poker?”
“Because he was in Lubin’s class.” But he looked a bit sheepish.
Cash had found what he was looking for, his thirty-two automatic. Clutching the moving furniture, he swayed with it back to the window, where he stood with it and fired futilely at the bulk of the crane.
The light went out and the pendant crashed to the floor.
“So it’s here he brought the tweed bag,” yelled George, and he seemed to disappear into the shuddering gloom.
Now that the glass was gone, and it was dark in the room, the vast crane was suddenly visible with enormous clarity. Its boom loomed over the building. Lubin was using the ten ton ball inexpertly, but getting better all the time. I found myself braced for the next impact.
It was clear, for a long while it seemed, where the ball would strike next. It moved with an appalling dignity, its arc lined on the window.
“George,” I shouted, only he wasn’t there. “George, and the play on names. Cash and Deutsch Marks.”
Cash had seen the ball coming. He turned to run, almost too late, and out of the shadows to one side of him, lathered with plaster dust like an avenging ghost, appeared Fingal. Cash wasn’t going anywhere. Fingal got him from behind, that bear hug of his, locked so that Fingal could force him to face the window and stare into that accelerating swing of the ball.
Cash’s long, piercing scream was like a drill in my brain. The ball swallowed the night, then came in through the window, bringing frame and surrounding bricks with it.
Fingal and Cash, still locked together, flew backwards across the room. I found my way towards them, the floor collapsing under my feet. It was so dark I could barely make out their outlines. It was difficult to breathe. Cash, I think, was dead. His chest was completely caved in. Fingal was fighting for breath, with only his arms gone. He had sacrificed his hug.
I bellowed: “Can you stand?”
The roar of falling masonry was louder than the crane. Fingal stared at me, his eyes catching a gleam from somewhere. I gently unclenched his arms, then George was there, and together we got him out.
The stairs were almost gone. The cat spat and scuttled ahead of us. We almost fell down and through. But we got Fingal out into the air.
“Anybody missing?” I called out, but they were all gathering around, helping to get Fingal clear of the falling house.
“Cash!” said George. “Was he dead?”
Slowly and despondently the house crumbled down to a pall of rubble. “I don’t know. He is now, for sure.”
Clare was plucking at my elbow, her eyes big, her face old.
“It’s Wal.”
“What about him?”
“He went dashing off. Wasn’t going to let anybody mess with his crane.”
George and I went running. Dyke was moving into a special class if he tangled with Lubin.
The shed had gone. In his enthusiasm, Lubin had flattened that, too. We found Ginger Dyke sitting on the ground by the silent crane, clutching his arm. He had got out in time to receive one of Cash’s wild shots.
“All right?” I asked.
“Amateurs!” he said with contempt, staring at the crane.
Its cab was crushed, the ball still embedded in the tangled steel. Lubin was pinned in the wreckage. Like the twisting shed, what swung one way had to swing back.
What had obviously happened was that the ball, having entered the house window, had become stuck.
“It’s pathetic!” said Dyke. “When something happens like that, the instinct is to
give it more cable. It’s fatal. When it comes free it swings low, and you’ve had it.”
A car raced past as Greenbaum headed for healthier fights of only four rounds, and when I looked back Clare was sobbing, on her knees, clutching Ginger’s arm. He howled.
“So now will you stay home!” she laughed, weeping.
We left Duxford, very sober, to tidy up. George sat in the Porsche and I started the engine. I said I’d take him back to the hotel.
“It’s barely eleven,” I said.
He was counting something. I glanced sideways. “George?”
“I guessed he’d have a few more of the fivers around. They were in the drawer where he kept the gun.”
“But it’s no good to you.”
“I can play poker with it, can’t I!” he protested. “If you’re dashing off to Elsa.”
“How’d you guess?”
“It’s been with you for days, Dave lad. But you don’t have to worry about Ian Carefree.”
I laughed, stopping for him to get out at the hotel.
“Help yourself to my shirts, why don’t you.”
I drove away. I didn’t push it, letting the relaxation soak in to the hum of the engine. As it turned out, a few minutes earlier might have saved Elsa from a most unpleasant experience. I had no awareness of what awaited me. There was this...
But that is really Elsa’s story.
If you have enjoyed reading The Weight of Evidence, you might be interested in Time to Kill, also by Roger Ormerod.
Extract from Time to Kill by Roger Ormerod
1
The flat door was on the catch. I touched it with a delicate finger and slipped inside.
There was something huge shading the windows. As he looked like trouble I slid forward fast, taking the attack into his half of the room. That’s my way with those types, hit hard and ask afterwards.
He struck me with the wall, caught me by the throat as I bounced off it and laid me face up on the ceiling, then on the way down helped me with a hundredweight of hand so that I joined the pattern in the carpet. Considerately he stood and waited until I picked myself up and bruised my fist against his guts, then he laughed and put his palm in my face.
I picked myself off the bed. The bedroom door was still swinging wildly where I’d taken the lock out. He ducked through the doorway edge on, and I had time to call him a name, which held him while I got a good fix. Mid-thirties, blond, a face like an angel carved out of granite, and huge, solid hands that swung just above his knees. I went fast for the bedside drawer, but he reached out one of his ponderous maulers like a flash of light and pocketed my thirty-two automatic. Up to then he’d been playing himself in. Now he flexed his muscles. I tried a kick in the belly, but I’d got on my snugs and they were softer than his stomach muscles. He toyed around with the foot for a while, then swung me gently around by it in an arc that included the upright chair that nobody was going to sit in any more.
Around that time I decided he was going to be difficult to take. His face came close enough for me to hit, so I hit it, and it didn’t even remove the smile—but it was a pleasant smile. Then he got tired of it. He patted me a bit until I lost consciousness, and as far as I know simply walked out.
It was no good complaining I was out of condition. The doc had cleared me for duty on the Monday, so there was no excuse. So I lay awhile and congratulated myself I was still alive. Then I crawled off the bed and began an inventory of what he’d done. There were some defacing marks between my mouth and ears, and a cut over one eye. I still couldn’t stand straight, and two teeth were somewhere on the floor. I hoped my back wasn’t broken.
I rang the office and thought maybe I’d try a trace on him, and Records were answering before I spotted the oblong of white pasteboard on the floor in the debris. I said, “Hold it,” and went to have a look.
It was one of Eldon Kyle’s visiting cards. Just a plain card with his name printed on, which he must have kept from before he went inside. He’d handwritten across the top: ‘With the compliments of—’ So Eldon Kyle had sent the goon. Well at least he was showing his hand. I went back to the phone and said never mind now and hung up. It needed a bit of thought.
The bottle of scotch hadn’t been smashed. I found a whole glass and filled it twice before I decided. I limped to the phone and called Geoff Forbes in Shropshire. If Eldon Kyle was sending demonstrative visitors, Geoff would have to know. Perhaps, even, he’d had a visit already. The ringing tone went on a long while, so I looked at my watch. It was only a few minutes after eleven. Geoff wouldn’t be in bed, might not even be home from his office. It was Elsa who answered.
“Geoff there, Elsa?”
“It’s David? Well ... hello again. It’s been a long time—”
But it was not the occasion for social chat, and I’d be lured away from the firm purpose of it by Elsa’s voice.
“It’s important, Elsa.” Maybe I wasn’t talking too well. My tongue was still searching for its old friends in the gaps. But I didn’t have to be that harsh. “Sorry Elsa. Something’s happened.”
“You’re all right? David, what’s the matter? You sound strange.”
I could have afforded a few seconds of reassurance but that would have assumed her concern. “I’m getting used to a new dental arrangement. Is he there, Elsa?”
Her voice became cool, efficient. “He’s here now.”
“What’s up, Dave?” His voice brisk. He’d been a good interrogator, when he’d been with us.
I told him. I couldn’t say how much of the flat was still useable because I hadn’t been through it.
“He hasn’t been here,” he said, and we both knew that he wouldn’t call on Geoff now. Geoff would be ready, a bigger man than I am.
“What d’you make of it?”
I’d had time to line up a few thoughts. Eldon Kyle had been out of prison three months now, and we’d assumed he’d forgotten all about the threats he’d made when we put him away. But if it wasn’t going to be more than a beating up...
“I reckon he’s one of those bleating types that don’t live up to their tongues,” I said, hoping for encouragement.
But he didn’t come up with any. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”
“A beating up —”
“You never did understand him, Dave.” He didn’t let me ease in a gentle protest. “The man’s psychotic. You think maybe he’ll have forgotten. But don’t you believe it. His sort brood on it. Whatever he threatened he’ll have multiplied to an obsession.”
“Oh come on Geoff, the man sends a goon—”
He wasn’t going to let me finish anything. “Watch him Dave, that’s all, and if something else happens...anything, ring me straight away.”
“Such as the big ape showing again?”
“Such as that.”
I didn’t fancy another visit like the last. There was very little I could pull out that would stop him, and he’d taken my thirty-two with him.
“I could get Kyle on assault.”
“You wouldn’t be able to prove it. All you’ve got’s a visiting card. Get a trace on the tough...”
“He wouldn’t send anybody with a criminal record.”
And there was very little more we could say. It was a matter of wait and see. For the moment Kyle was calling the tricks.
So I waited.
As I’d guessed, the Police Doctor who’d cleared me on the Wednesday didn’t hesitate to sign me on again on Friday, when I took him my wounds to gloat over. I was getting a bit bored of sick leave. Three months is too long to sit around and contemplate. Doctor or not I went in on the Monday, said hello around and displayed the new bruises, and looked in on this Supt. Vantage I’d been under when I’d got a broken arm working for him. It was a mistake. I don’t know if I’d been expecting sympathy, but I didn’t get any.
He grunted sourly. “Stringing it on a bit, aren’t you?”
“If it hadn’t been for this big ape— ”
“You
tread on too many toes,” he said ungraciously.
All right, so I trod on toes, but he hadn’t waited to hear that the toes had been trodden on six years before. But Vantage hadn’t forgiven me for letting my arm get broken, and thereby depriving him of my valued services for three months.
So I said nothing more about it. Vantage and me, we never got on. A strict book man, Vantage was, no corners cut, no straights left unexplored. The trouble was, I’d learned my bit under Geoff Forbes, who had been my idea of a perfect copper when he’d been with us. The difference was that Geoff could afford it, and independence was a luxury I should have left alone. It was all right for him. He’d had a private income, and he just didn’t care. Maybe if he’d have stayed with it he’d have not cared himself back into the ranks. But the sudden deaths of his father and brother had pitched him overnight on to a board of directors, and if he cared there he had never said.
So I let it drop. If Kyle was going to show his teeth I decided I’d rather get it done with than have Vantage putting in his official nose. I told him I’d maybe be joining him in a week’s time and wandered along to Records to look at a few mugs. There weren’t many to look through, because of his size, and I was not surprised there was nobody like my goon.
I asked about Kyle, just to place the opposition. He’d got his full remission, and as far as anybody knew he was being a good and responsible citizen, having rented a place in a quiet part of Wolverhampton. He was playing a few exhibition snooker matches. I made a note of his address, and departed.
I had left my old black Morris Oxford in the car park at the rear. Sometimes it acts up a bit. The trouble with cars is that the older they get, the more personality they develop. This one was getting positively skittish, but we had an understanding, me and the car. This morning I’d got all the time in the world so it started first touch.
I hadn’t gone a mile before I spotted I was being followed. It was a bright orange Mini and when I got held up at the lights he drew alongside and waved. It was my goon. How he’d got into the thing I couldn’t guess. I did not wave back. It is undignified to wave to a man who’s beaten you up. Of course, I should have got out and asked him who the devil he was, and requested he should get the hell out of there. Oh, and asked him for my gun back while I was at it. The trouble was, he probably would have simply smiled, the way he was smiling right then, and how could anyone take offence in the face of such splendid innocence? He obviously felt no animosity towards me for the feeble defence I’d put up. And equally obviously he expected none from me. So I let it ride.
The Weight of Evidence Page 14