Dead Man’s Shoes

by Bruce, Leo

  “You’d have known this was going to be the murderer? Then you’d have warned everyone and there wouldn’t have been a murder.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t feel comfortable afterwards to know he’d been in the house.”

  “Getting rather involved, aren’t we? Have a drink. What did you say your name was? No, let me guess. It can only be something exotic, like Zöe.”

  “They call me Mickie, as a matter of fact.”

  “Very nice too. Tell me more about your murderer.”

  “Well, Mrs Gunn could tell you more than what I could, really. She did his room.”

  “Who is Mrs Gunn?”

  “She’s one of the ladies who work in the hotel. What number rooms have you got?”

  “Seventeen and eighteen.”

  “Have you really? He had eighteen. That’s one of Mrs Gunn’s.”

  “I suppose the dinner will be delicious? Grand old English cooking?”

  “It’s ever so nice tonight. We’ve just got a new cook.”

  They went through to the dining-room, where they ate the usual tinned soup, tasteless plaice from the icebox in composite batter, a shaving of cold meat with hot gravy over it, tinned peas and processed cheese. A wine list was produced, and Carolus ordered a Burgundy which arrived lukewarm, and they ended with bad coffee of the same temperature.

  “You got all that?” asked Rupert, referring to his conversation with the barmaid.

  “Yes. I’ll have a word with Mrs Gunn in the morning.”

  He did. He went up after breakfast and found her making his bed. She was a heavily-built, hard-breathing person with hair on her upper lip and a wheezy voice, which did not prevent her from being garrulous.

  Carolus thought he might as well risk it and come straight to the point. “Mrs Gunn,” he said, “I’ve been asked to make an independent investigation of the murder. I hear this is the room in which the suspect slept.”

  “Yes, in this very bed,” whistled Mrs Gunn asthmatically. “That’s if he could sleep at all which I couldn’t if I was going to do for someone next day and had it all planned out before I got to bed so that I’d toss and turn thinking about it, but perhaps he didn’t worry at the time though he’s paid for it now jumping off a ship and doing for himself which I must say surprised me from what I remember of him….”

  “What do you remember of him?”

  “Well it wasn’t as though I saw a lot of him not to say as you would see anyone you knew well but I did meet him in the passage the first evening and noticed he was a big party with glasses and the sort of clothes my uncle used to wear who was an undertaker till his business failed from not enough dying he used to say but I believe it was the drink because he kept it in the house and that’s always a bad sign though …”

  “So you only caught that one glimpse of the suspected murderer, Mrs Gunn?”

  “No, I saw him next morning when I took his breakfast in which he’d ordered the night before only he was in bed and just shouted ‘put it down there’ at me and I thought to myself ‘what a voice’, I thought, ‘I wonder if that’s how he speaks or if he’s trying to be rude’ but I didn’t say anything only put the tray down and went out of the room closing the door which had been locked before when I got there and had to be unlocked by him jumping out of bed and telling me to wait a minute while he jumped in again before I opened the door which has happened with others before now….”

  “That was the last?”

  “No there was once more that afternoon when he was packing up and I went to see if he wanted anything and he came to the door and said he didn’t but didn’t think to leave anything on the dressing-table which I always think is mean though there is the percentage and that which is never really the Same Thing….”

  “So you didn’t exchange any conversation with him?”

  “Not to say conversation, no. In fact there was nothing said at all except what I’ve told you.”

  “I understand that while he was out that afternoon you came to do his room and found his passport lying about?”

  “That’s right. It was right on top of his suit-case which I’d just opened to pop something in and I couldn’t help seeing it because it might have been left there to be looked at …”

  “You mean it was open ?”

  “Well not actually open but there it was right on top of everything and waiting for anyone just to notice what was in it …”

  “So you examined it?”

  “Oh no, I never did any such thing. I just peeped at the front page that’s all and saw that it was the same gentleman in the photograph but he had a different name to what he’d given in the hotel and what was on the label of one of his suit-cases. Not that I thought much about it at the time but when there was all this lark about the murder I thought to myself’that’s funny, I wonder if it’s got anything to do with it’, so I told Mr Habbard who said he’d better tell the police which he did.”

  “You said one of his suit-cases just now. How many had he?”

  “Only just the two but the other one was locked that afternoon so I can’t tell you anything about that. Not that I’m the nosy sort but sometimes when a thing’s right in front of you, you can’t help taking a look if it’s the last thing you do. I’m sure I never want to know anyone’s business but it was lucky I did just happen to notice that passport because it’s helped the police ever so much or so Mr Slott told me. He’s the local policeman and not much Liked if the truth were known but that comes from him being funny with closing hours and that and getting a poor woman fined for …”

  “When this man, Leech or Larkin, quitted the room that afternoon did you find anything left behind?”

  “I don’t know whatever you mean because if I had of done I should have gone straight to Mr Habbard with it as well he knows.”

  Mrs Gunn’s wheezing voice grew indignant.

  “Oh, I meant anything of no value at all that you would throw away.”

  “I always empty the waste-paper-basket and if there are any old papers and that of course I throw them away unless it’s a picture paper which my husband likes to have a read of when I get home.”

  “And were there?”

  “When this murderer left you mean? I wonder however you expect me to remember a thing like that when I do rooms every morning and anyone might leave anything for all I know….”

  “Were there, Mrs Gunn? Any papers left by the murderer?”

  “I wonder whatever makes you ask a question like that….”

  Carolus gave her a ten-shilling note.

  “Just curiosity,” he said. “I had a sort of idea there might be.”

  “Well if you want to know there was just one envelope but I didn’t say anything to the police about it because they didn’t ask me and I didn’t see why I should go out of my way when they’ve never done anything for me except get my brother into trouble that time when he’d had a couple …”

  “Did you keep this envelope?”

  “Not to say keep it I didn’t but I did slip it in my bag and take it home because of the stamps which my little boy is mad about changing and chopping with other boys half the time and sticking them in an all-bum as he calls it though I can’t think why he wants to use such vulgar language and when I saw this envelope with foreign stamps on it I thought to myself I thought young Perce will be ever so pleased with that when I get it home.”

  “And was he?” Carolus saw that the only way to get what he wanted was to allow a free rein to Mrs Gunn.

  “Oh yes I should think he was! ‘Oh mum,’ he says, ‘they’re Moroccans,’ he says, and he starts taking them off the envelope….”

  “Did you notice that envelope?”

  Carolus was holding his breath.

  “Only to see it was to someone called Larkin in Tangier.”

  “You didn’t keep it?”

  “No I popped it straight in the kitchen fire which was On that day because it heats the bath-water and it was my husband’s night to have
a bath….”

  “I’m very much obliged to you, Mrs Gunn, for all you’ve told me. There’s nothing else you happen to remember about this man?”

  “No, only that voice of his and the nasty way he had with people and his not remembering to leave anything for me and his kind of blinking at you as though he didn’t see well and his passport which I’ve told the police about, so I don’t think there’s anything else.”

  Carolus went downstairs and decided to look in on Habbard, the hotel manager, before going over to Barton Abbess Place.

  He found him in his office, a tall, important, youngish man in a new suit and a regimental tie.

  “D’you mind if I ask you one or two questions about this man Larkin who stayed here?”

  “You Press?” asked Mr Habbard briskly.

  “No. I’m making an independent investigation for Packinlay.”

  “I see. Because we’ve had enough publicity over this business. Not good for a hotel of this class. This belongs to the United Ancient Hostelries Association, and we can’t afford a lot of vulgar chatter in the newspapers.”

  “What,” Carolus could not help asking, though it was irrelevant to his enquiry, “what is the United Ancient Hostelries Association?”

  “Mean to say you haven’t heard of it? My dear chap, where have you been? It’s the most important development in the licensing trade today. We take over fine old English inns, with their great tradition of hospitality, good liquor and good fare, and while keeping their ancient character and architecture, we add the amenities required by the modern motorist. Take this house, for instance …”

  “Oh, I quite understand,” said Carolus hurriedly. “Admirable, I’m sure. I wonder whether Larkin approved?”

  “Between you and me, old man, I didn’t have much to do with him. He was quite obviously not out of the top drawer, and when you run a place like this you don’t hob-nob with any of the guests whom you wouldn’t meet in your own home. This Larkin person, or Leech as he called himself, arrived in a self-drive car which he’d hired in London, or so he told the hall porter, who made some remark about it. He stayed only one night, and went off unexpectedly in the afternoon.”

  “Really?”

  “He’d booked without saying how long he would stay. The girl at the desk had asked him, and he had shouted that he didn’t know; he thought a few days. Next afternoon I was in the hall seeing a client …”

  “Mr Smite.”

  “You’re very well-informed. Yes, it was old Smite asking for Packinlay. He’d got one of his billets doux for him, I gathered. I was just telling Smite that Packinlay hadn’t been in for a day or two when this character bounces in and starts giving me orders. ‘Have my bill made up at once,’ he shouts; ‘I’m leaving immediately.’ I’m not accustomed to being spoken to like that, but with characters of that type I find it best just to ignore that sort of thing. One point I did notice, though. The man was in a muck sweat.”

  “It was a warm afternoon. He’d been walking.”

  “It wasn’t just that, old man. He was trembling like a leaf. He’d obviously had some shock or other.”

  “You didn’t enquire?”

  “A man in my position can hardly concern himself with things of that sort, can he? Of course if I’d known that he had just shot poor old Gregory Willick it would have been different. Very good chap, Gregory.”

  “In your mind, then, there is no doubt that Larkin had murdered Willick?”

  “Oh, none whatever. If ever I saw a murderer, that was one.

  “Thanks very much. You’ve been most helpful.”

  “It’s been a trying business for us. I had to attend the inquest, you know. A hotel of this class can’t afford to be mixed up in a thing like this. My directors were most upset. Lord Finchington was on the phone to me at once. ‘What’s this, Ray?’ he said. ‘It’s all right, Henry,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got it under control.’ Still, one could understand their anxiety. How do you like this old spinning-wheel? The Board have just bought a couple of dozen, one for each of our hotels.”

  “Splendid. Excellent,” said Carolus, and bade the manager good morning.

  8

  BARTON PLAGE was a Tudor house with a wing added in the eighteenth century. It stood in a most beautiful setting, the grounds having been designed by Capability Brown. You penetrated an outer irregular ring of trees to find a spacious enclosed area of parkland, so that from nowhere was the house overlooked, yet it was not crowded in or made gloomy by too many trees near it.

  Carolus was full of admiration, and even Rupert said, “I can’t understand why it hasn’t been turned into an asylum. It’s too beautiful to be allowed to belong to anyone in this day and age.”

  But it had belonged, and very much so, to Gregory Willick. A fortune made in Calcutta had enabled at least one of England’s fine old houses to be kept for the purpose for which it was built—a gentleman’s residence.

  The door was opened by a little man in a grey jacket and an apron.

  “Is Mrs Sweeny in?” Carolus asked.

  There was none of the savoir faire of a family butler about the little man in the apron. He was deaf, it appeared, and said “Eh?”

  Carolus repeated his question.

  “Oh, ay. I’ll go and see. You wait a minute. No, you better come in. Stay here while I go and ask her. Mind this floor, it’s just been polished and the mat’s up. Wait here, will you?”

  He disappeared.

  In a few moments Marylin Sweeny was with them, and it was at once obvious that Packinlay had not exaggerated her beauty. But he had said nothing about something equally noticeable—her charm. She was full of it; it enveloped her like a cloud. ‘What a charming woman!’ You could hear the words ringing through the conversations of all who knew her. ‘She’s so lovely; but what I adore about her is that she’s so sweet with everyone.’

  “I’m wildly sorry,” she said now as she approached them. “Old Hoppy’s such an ass. I’ve been telling him for years what to do, and he’s still apt to send everyone round to the back door. You’re Carolus Deene, aren’t you? Gilbert Packinlay’s told me all about you. Do come in.”

  She led the way to a comfortable room with a great many well-arranged flowers in it.

  Carolus with an apologetic smile said he couldn’t help telling her how beautiful they were.

  She smiled back.

  “My old Greg adored flowers and I used to keep the place full of them. I took a course in flower arrangement because I knew he liked it. Now the gardeners keep on bringing them in, and I do them because somehow I think it would please him. I hope that doesn’t sound too sentimental.”

  “Do you intend to keep on this house, Mrs Sweeny?”

  “I’d like to, but I don’t think it will be possible. Greg made the place over to me about a year ago, and at the same time gave me a block of capital. But apparently that’s all subject to death duties now. Perhaps by selling everything except the house itself and a bit of land round it I can just manage, but it’s not going to be easy. I know he wanted me to live on here.”

  “Everything goes to his nephew?”

  “Lance. Yes. Pity, you’ve just missed him. He came down yesterday and spent the night. He was off this morning on the 8.15 for London to leave for Tangier tonight. He never stays long when he comes.”

  “I haven’t met him yet.”

  “You’ll like him, I think. I always have and Greg did. It’s quite right that he should come into Greg’s money, you know.”

  “When did he arrive in England?”

  “Last Wednesday, I believe, by air. He knew this man Larkin in Tangier and went to meet his ship on Thursday. Oddly enough I don’t think he believed Larkin was guilty and I think he was going to arrange for him to have lawyers and that sort of thing. But of course he heard, when the ship came in, that Larkin had confessed and jumped overboard.”

  “It’s not quite as simple as that, Mrs Sweeny. There’s no proof that he committed suicide, and his confess
ion was typed without a signature. It’s possible that he was murdered. Did you ever see him?”

  “Never.”

  “Did Mr Willick ever mention him?”

  “Not to me. To Gilbert Packinlay, I believe.”

  “He was a friend of Lance Willick’s?”

  “I don’t think he was an intimate friend. A bit of a hanger-on, I gather. When Lance and Greg spoke of him it was always with some amusement.”

  “When did they speak of him?”

  “Lance used to come over occasionally. Always by air. He and Greg were quite good friends. He never stayed long. Always seemed in a hurry to get back to Tangier. Who can blame him, with our climate?”

  “I see.”

  “Now come on, Mr Deene. When are you going to ask me the vital question? ‘Where were you at the time of the crime?’ I know it has got to come.”

  “If you feel like telling me.”

  “I ought either to have an alibi so definite and well-timed and witnessed that your suspicions are aroused at once, or else none at all, like being alone in a cinema. Actually I’m afraid it was neither. I ran into Cheltenham to change some library books, buy some fish because Greg liked it and we couldn’t get what we wanted out here, and pick up my watch, which had been under repair. I left home immediately after lunch, say about two fifteen, and was in the library by a quarter to three or earlier. I changed my books for three far drearier, then went on to Brimmings the fishmonger in the High Street, where I bought some scallops and delicious Dover soles. I went to Wotherspoons, who had my watch, but it wasn’t ready. I was home to tea before half-past four. You see, I’ve got it all ready for you.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Sweeny.”

  “Seriously though, there’s no doubt that it was this frightful Larkin, is there? I mean it all seems so obvious.”

  “That’s rather the point, you know. It’s too obvious. If the man really did it he must be a half-wit, and there’s no reason to think that. He didn’t leave clues, he left a positive spoor behind him.”