by Bruce, Leo
“What do you deal in, Mr Maltby?”
“Whatever I think is wanted. It depends on what a place needs.”
“You move very silently.”
“Yes.”
“One would think you had rubber soles.”
“I have.”
There was a long silence.
“Did you know Larkin?” asked Carolus.
“No. I knew no one in either case.”
“Will you meet Lance Willick while you’re in Tangier?”
“Perhaps, if it is necessary for business reasons.”
“Why, I wonder, are you not more frank about your identity, Mr Maltby? Why all this secrecy? You might just as well have told Captain Bidlake what was your interest in the case.”
“I don’t know why you should assume I have one. I’m going to start a business in Tangier. Probably buy a hotel.”
“I wish you every good fortune. Do you know the place well?”
“Never been there in my life.”
“Then it must be newspaper accounts of it which make you think you need to be armed. You really shouldn’t take them too seriously. They’re running Tangier now as a city of glittering vice. It used to be Buenos Aires. Both are perfectly respectable ports where many pleasant people live quite ordinary lives.”
“What makes you say I’m armed?”
“Oh don’t be naïve, Mr Maltby. I’m not wholly unobservant.”
“But aren’t you, don’t you think, a little incautious? Entering something in which you may not be at all welcome? In a place where few questions are asked?”
“Nicely put. Don’t concern yourself for me, Mr Maltby. I appreciate your consideration, but I assure you that I can look after myself quite well enough for this little matter.”
“Things are not always what they seem.”
“But a pistol is always a pistol and rubber soles remain rubber soles. Good night.”
12
NEXT MORNING Carolus waited until the steward was cleaning his cabin, then went in.
“Look, Gunner, I’m making a private investigation of the deaths of Gregory Willick and Larkin. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“What’s the Captain say, Mr Deene? See, we were told not to spout about it when we were home.”
“Why not go and ask the Captain or Mr Appleyard if it’s all right for you to tell me what you know?”
“If you don’t mind, Mr Deene.”
He was back in a few minutes with a grin.
“Mr Appleyard says I can tell you anything except what happened to him ashore in Cadiz one night. What can I tell you?”
“First of all about Mrs Roper. She’s an old friend of mine and I’ve seen her in London.”
“She’s a dam’ good sort,” said Gunner. “She wouldn’t get anyone into trouble. See, on the night when this Larkin went overboard she was knocking back sandwiches and Guinness with me in the galley. She often used to feel peckish late at night—well, she’s a big woman. I was telling her about my sister’s kids, who are the same age as mine.”
Gunner dived into his pocket and with great swiftness produced two of a huge packet of snapshots.
“See, these are mine, here. That’s the little one; she’s five now and the boy’s eight. Little devil, he is. Ah, here’s my sister’s two; both girls they are. Two years difference between them, but you wouldn’t think so, would you? They look like twins. Well, I hadn’t got that one on me that night and I just popped along to my cabin to get it.”
“Yes. Mrs Roper told me that.”
“I share a cabin with the cook and he was in his bunk when I got in. Just as I was looking through some snaps and that to find this one we both heard that awful bloody scream of ‘Man overboard’. ‘Christ!’ said the cook, ‘what’s that?’ ‘Man overboard,’ I said, and went back through the galley to the deck.”
“Where was Mrs Roper?”
“She was on deck already.”
“So it would have been possible, mind you I only mean possible, for it to have been Mrs Roper who shouted ‘Man overboard’? So far as you know, that is?”
“I suppose so. But it wasn’t like her. She talked almost like a man. She was all right, was Mrs Roper. She gave me an embroidered table-cloth that she’d bought in Spain. Yes, gave it to me for the wife. The wife was ever so pleased. Well, she’s always on about my bringing her nothing back. Did I show you her picture? See, this is her with the bunch of flowers. That’s the youngest with her, only it hasn’t come out so well as the other one.”
Carolus examined the snapshot and murmured appreciatively. Then he asked if Gunner had any reason to think that Larkin drank.
“Funny you should ask that,” said Gunner. “He always said he was a strict teetotaller and nearly had a fight with me about it on the last night. But I know he had liquor in his suit-cases. One night he was well away—could hardly get to his cabin. I was watching him when young Bryce comes along, who’s a decent kid, and this Larkin asks him to have a drink with him. I see them go into Larkin’s cabin.”
“So?”
“I didn’t know what to do. I know the apprentices aren’t allowed in the passengers’ cabins; still, it’s no business of mine to get anyone into trouble. Only, see, I’ve got a young brother just about Dick Bryce’s age and I think I wouldn’t like it to be him, drinking whisky at his age with a type like that. See, this is my young brother—” The pack was out again and Carolus was staring at a snapshot. “That’s his motor-bike, only he’s changed it now for a new one. This is taken outside my place about a year ago.”
“Good photo,” said Carolus.
“I didn’t know what to do. In the end I thought I’d go and find the First Mate because you can talk to him. It took me some time to find him but when I did he understood quick enough. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘it shan’t be a black mark against him. I’ll just get the Captain to tear a strip off him in the morning.’ Then he went off to Larkin’s cabin, which was as usual locked.”
“You were with him?”
“I was there, yes. He knocked and in a minute or two Larkin opened. But when Appleyard got in Larkin was alone.”
“Bryce had gone?”
“Must have. While I was gone for Appleyard.”
“Unless … could he have hidden in here?”
They both looked round the cabin carefully. The lockers were too small. There seemed nowhere in which even a boy could have been concealed.
“There’s just one place, now I come to think of it,” said Gunner.
He stooped to the bunk, undid a catch and partly lifted the whole bunk as if it were a coffin lid.
“See, there’s a locker under there, big enough to take him. Young Bryce would have known, and may have jumped into it when he heard Appleyard knock.”
Carolus looked at the locker dubiously. “Think he could get in there?”
“Easy. He’s slim. It wouldn’t take a big man, but him or me it would.”
“Yes,” said Carolus. “But, as you say, he may have gone.”
“I’ve never liked to ask him because he’d know who’d split to Appleyard.”
“I don’t suppose it matters,” Carolus said and began to question the steward on other lines.
“You did Larkin’s cabin every day?”
“Yes. Same as I do it now.”
“Did he have much luggage?”
“Two suit-cases. Always locked. But I don’t know why. The police opened them here to make an inventory, and all there was in them was clothes and that.”
“I gather he wore old-fashioned clothes?”
“You’re telling me. He had two or three suits all the same and plenty of shirts and collars. But I noticed one thing that was unusual. He had no boots or shoes except the ones he wore. That is, there were never any about the cabin and none in the suit-cases when they were opened.”
“Interesting,” said Carolus. “No spare shoes. Have you ever had another passenger like that?”
“Only one who was being sent home
by the Consul and had nothing at all but a pair of slacks and a shirt. We all had to give him stuff to go ashore with. But Larkin was different. He seemed to have plenty of money.”
“Did the police notice that there were no spare shoes?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear them say anything. I was rushing about while they were here, as you can imagine. Getting the passengers off and that. I only know the fingerprint experts had a hard time. Blinding and swearing, they were. Trying all over the place. I don’t know whether they ever did find any decent prints.”
“I see. Didn’t he leave any personal possessions behind? In most cases of suicide by drowning, people have taken off anything of value.”
“This one didn’t. He wore rings and a tie-pin and a watch-and-chain. There was no sign of them anywhere after that night.”
Carolus went out on deck, greeted his fellow-passengers as cheerfully as possible and called Rupert Priggley aside.
“If you start Crown and Anchor or Find the Lady I’ll throw you into the sea.”
“You talk like Dean Farrar, sometimes. We’re going to play Canasta, that’s all.”
“Keep the stakes down, then, you odious boy.”
“Must give them their own back,” said Rupert Priggley.
It was not until two days later that Carolus got a chance of talking to Kutz, and even then the interview began by being a most unsatisfying one. Mr Kutz had a faculty of silence, as Larkin had found to his cost. At the best of times he answered in short unwilling phrases and seemed to be thinking of distant things.
They had the saloon to themselves for an hour after lunch one day. The other passengers were dozing on deck.
“You know why I’m on this ship, I take it?” said Carolus.
Kutz nodded gravely.
“I’m determined to get this thing cleared up. It will surely be better for everyone on board if I can.”
“Why?”
“Surely, while it’s unsolved, there’s always a certain amount of embarrassment.”
Kutz said nothing, indicating that the embarrassment if any was not for him.
“Do you know whether it was suicide or murder, Mr Kutz?”
“I do not care. He is dead.”
“That’s all that matters?”
“Yes.”
“You hated him?”
Kutz smiled. He had not a friendly smile.
“I did not hate him. I am beyond hatred.”
“You mean?”
“I have no more hatred for anyone. I have spent it all.”
“But you wished Larkin dead?”
“Oh yes. To wish dead and to hate are different.”
“Mr Kutz, is there anything you can tell me that will help me to solve this problem?”
Kutz smoked half-way through a cigarette without answering. Instinct told Carolus to await the outcome. At last it came.
“Yes,” said Kutz. Then added, “I don’t know if it will help you. There is something I can tell you.”
Still Carolus waited.
“On the night of his outburst in the saloon he came to my cabin.”
“Which outburst? There were so many.”
“When he brought up the matter of the murder of Willick.”
“Oh yes. I’ve heard about that.”
“He knocked at my door and without waiting for permission walked in and shut the door behind him. I did not move. He leaned on the bunk and said, ‘I must talk to someone on this ship.’ I did not answer. I looked up at him and put down my book. I simply waited.
“ ‘They all think I did it,’ he said. ‘Do you?’ I nodded. I knew this man. I had met his kind before. ‘Well, you’re damned right,’ he said. ‘I did. I shot him. As near as I am to you.’ He expected me to be surprised that he should confess. I was not. I am not easily surprised by human behaviour.
“He said nothing more for some minutes. Then he said, ‘Now I shall do for myself. I can’t be bothered to deny it. I shall do for myself before we reach port.’ Then I spoke. ‘Good,’ I said and picked up my book again. He waited a minute or two, not, I think, in anger at what I had said. He had expected that. Afterwards he walked out.”
“That’s most interesting,” said Carolus. “For at last it makes me certain of one or two things.” He looked fixedly at Kutz. “I know now that Larkin did not commit suicide.”
Carolus became aware of someone tall standing just outside the door of the saloon. He continued to look at Kutz.
“You think he is still alive?” Kutz asked.
“No. He is certainly not still alive.”
“You mean, it was murder?”
“Does one use the word ‘murder’ for creatures like that? He is dead.”
“Do you think I killed him, Mr Deene?”
Carolus turned towards the doorway.
“Do come and join us, Mr Maltby,” he said. ‘We’re having a most enlightening discussion.”
Kutz, whose back was to the door, wheeled round. When Maltby came into the room Kutz rose and walked out.
“Friendly type,” commented Maltby. “Observant?”
“Very.”
“Communicative?”
“Quite sufficiently.”
“Ah well. We’re more than half-way there now. Delightful trip, isn’t it?”
Perceiving that this sort of parry and thrust could go on too long, Carolus said, “Don’t you think we’re being rather silly? I know you’re CID and you know I’m an amateur. Each may have the poorest possible opinion of what the other stands for, but there’s no need for us to spar about like a couple of frightened boxers.”
“None whatever. Especially as we are here for entirely different purposes.”
“I should hardly say ‘entirely’. You may not see the case as I do, but we’re both on this ship and going to Tangier for the same reason, surely.”
“Oh no. I’m not interested in the Willick case. Or the Larkin suicide. As a matter of fact they’ve both been written off for some time now. We’re satisfied that Larkin killed Willick, then committed suicide. We’ve no further interest in the matter.”
“It’s impossible,” said Carolus. “Your people must see that it’s impossible. A man has been murdered in cold blood on an afternoon stroll in the English countryside. You know perfectly well that your solution is not the correct one. You can’t be dropping the thing like that.”
“More important matters,” said Maltby grimly.
“Such as?”
“Thing I’m on now. Sex case. If I can get the little bits of evidence I want in Tangier we can pull off four convictions at least.”
“I congratulate you,” said Carolus.
“Must keep your sense of proportion,” Maltby pointed out. “Can’t get carried away by every murder that comes along.”
“No. How many unsolved cases is it this year?”
“Oh, I daresay. But think of the convictions in other cases. Travelling on out-of-date tickets. Open after hours. Passing betting-slips. Selling liquor without a licence. Indecency. Smutty picture postcards. Unlicensed dogs and wireless sets. Speeding. Drunk and disorderly. Soliciting. Busking. You can’t say we’ve been idle, can you? Must have law and order, you see. An occasional unexplained murder or a successful mail-van robbery gets a great deal of publicity. But it’s soon over. The work we do in defence of morality is in the limelight all the time.”
“But life and property …”
“All very well, but you must have a nice few convictions for sex offences. The Home Office expects it. It does far more to convince everyone of the efficiency of the police force than anything else.”
“I see. I didn’t quite realize, perhaps.”
“Stands to reason. Get someone well known in the dock—an MP, a writer, an actor, a peer—and you’re well away. The Press like it and the public likes it, and you’re dead sure of a conviction. Work for weeks on some murder and what happens? Chummy gets off, ten to one, and you’re criticized for having charged him. Morality before
murder, that’s my motto.”
“So you’re really not the least bit concerned with the case I’m investigating?”
“I don’t say I haven’t my share of curiosity,” said Maltby. “Only natural when it’s professional interest. But so far as we’re concerned it’s closed. I’m after something quite different. Man who lived in Brighton four years ago. We’ve already got three witnesses. But there are a lot more. The bird I’m going to see in Tangier can give me the names. It always looks better to have plenty of witnesses.”
“Quite. You wouldn’t be interested even if I could prove to you that Larkin was deliberately thrown overboard? That it was an extremely carefully planned action?”
“Can’t see it would make much difference,” said Maltby. “Or do you think that on what you know now we should have a reasonable chance of getting a conviction?”
“I doubt if you would.”
“Well, that’s the answer, isn’t it? Convictions are what we want, not problem cases and acquittals. Always look bad. Give me a nice small certain conviction rather than a big gamble any time. Where would your promotion come from otherwise? I’d rather have a man fined for a parking offence than acquitted for causing grievous bodily harm.”
“But if he had caused grievous bodily harm?”
“All right if you’ve got your evidence. Might get him three or four years and yourself a stripe. But it’s too much of a gamble. He’s sure to have an alibi. With sex you’re safe.”
“It’s a point of view,” said Carolus. “So you won’t even see Lance Willick while you’re in Tangier?”
“Not unless I bump into him. He’s not what I’m after. All I want is one or two names and addresses in Brighton from a bird who’ll be only too glad to give them.”
Carolus went out on deck and at once heard Rupert Priggley’s voice.
“So when I saw that my father had his eye on this little piece of homework of mine …”
Carolus called him away.
“If you don’t behave yourself you’ll go back on the same ship,” he said.
“What’s wrong with you? Kutz won’t talk, eh?”
“Kutz has talked a great deal.”
“Maltby, then?”
“Maltby has said enough.”
“Then what are you fuming about?”