by Bruce, Leo
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m beginning to get somewhere, I know. At least I’ve eliminated a lot of impossibilities. But the farther I go the more nauseating I find it. It’s a beastly case.”
“We get in on Saturday, anyway. I’m quite keen to see Tangier.”
“Yes. We get in on Saturday. Then the real investigation begins.”
Carolus had only one other interview while he was aboard the Saragossa; that was with the Third Mate, Mr Booth. He found him, as the Captain had said, a ‘rough diamond’. He got on well with him, but saw no reason whatever to connect him with Larkin or the matters he was investigating.
13
AS THE Saragossa approached Tangier. Carolus leaned over the rail and saw the old city, beautiful and brilliant on its hill, and the new buildings that lined the front. That cluster of white minarets and dull red roofs which rose above the mighty walls has been described often enough—it makes the approach to Tangier from the sea one of the most spectacular of all port approaches.
“There is a nice unsolved mystery here in Morocco,” said Carolus. “A historical one, I mean. I should like to have a go at it one day if I ever do a sequel to William Rufus. It happened in 1921.”
Rupert yawned.
“Some dreary assassination, I suppose.”
“Not quite. It was the time when Abd el Krim and his Riffs were raising hell in what was then the Spanish zone. The Spanish General in command at Melilla, Manuel Fernandez Silvestre, asked King Alfonso for permission to lead an operation against the tribesmen. It was a most fearful failure and not only lost Spain men and material but meant her withdrawal from the whole Eastern Zone which she had been slowly occupying.”
“Where’s the mystery?”
“The mystery lay in what happened to Silvestre. He was never seen or heard of again. His end is sometimes described officially as suicide, but there’s no proof of that.”
They were coming alongside the quay and could see a fairly large gathering awaiting them. There were plenty of guides and a number of Europeans.
“I suppose it will take hours to get ashore,” lamented Rupert.
“Probably. But there’s no hurry.”
About half an hour after they had docked Carolus heard someone asking for him and turned to meet a rather young-faced man in his forties who looked cool and well-dressed.
“Mr Deene? My name’s Lance Willick. Marylin Sweeny wired me you were coming out on this ship so I thought I’d come down and meet you.”
“Very kind of you. I was just wondering how we should get ashore through this mob.”
“I’ve got a car. It won’t be hard. I know the Saragossa. I went home on her last year. Same officers, I gather. Comfortable trip?”
“Oh yes. Of its kind.”
“Where do you want to stay? There’s no really first-class hotel here, but quite a lot of fairly good ones.”
“I haven’t booked anywhere.”
“I’ll take you to the El Greco. It’s no worse than the rest. Then I hope you’ll dine with me this evening and I’ll start answering some of your questions.”
He smiled rather disarmingly.
“I have got quite a few for you,” said Carolus. “You seem to be the only friend this man Larkin had.”
“I don’t know about friend. I knew him well enough. I’ll tell you what I can this evening. I hope you won’t be disappointed. It may be less than you anticipated when you decided to come out here. Meanwhile, let’s get through these Customs.”
That evening Rupert decided to go off on his own.
“I shan’t fall into the hands of the Tangier criminals,” he promised Carolus.
“I’m not in the least worried about that. I’m only concerned for them if they fall into your hands. I hate to think what your influence would be on a decent straightforward smuggler or arms-runner. However, I may as well let you loose on the town. Don’t come in later than midnight.”
“Think I’m Cinderella, or something? Have a good time with Lance, and get some dope, for goodness’ sake. This case is beginning to drag.”
Lance Willick talked willingly enough over an excellent dinner. Carolus found him strangely detached and unemotional, a man who seemed to understand a great deal but feel very little. He enjoyed his food and wine, however, and knew something about both.
“Who was Larkin?” Carolus led off with the kind of directness he used to people who obviously meant to help him.
“I had never seen him till five years ago,” said Lance, “but I understand he was brought up in Calcutta. He had travelled quite a bit since then, though. I don’t know in what capacity. He spoke several oriental languages almost fautlessly and excellent German. It was rather odd about Calcutta because as you may know I was born out there myself and except for my years at school was brought up there till my grandfather died in 1931. I was only a year or two younger than Larkin, so I have often wondered why we never met.”
“Did you ever ask him?”
“Once, yes. But he was so full of complexes that questions like that always made him bristle. ‘Why didn’t we meet?’ he said. ‘Because you were the boss’s grandson and I was the bloody office-boy.’ That was so like him.”
“So he was employed by your grandfather. I suppose by your uncle, too?”
“During the short time before the business was sold after my grandfather’s death, I suppose so.”
“What did your uncle say about him? That’s really the point.”
“Not a great deal. About five years ago he wrote to me and said that Larkin was coming out here to stay. I haven’t kept the letter and I don’t remember its precise terms, but the drift was that he was an old friend and that Gregory was under some obligation to him so would I look after him a bit while he was here. He was coming from somewhere on the European mainland, I gathered, not from England. I remember Gregory warning me that I should find him a bit difficult.”
“I don’t quite understand the ‘obligation’,” said Carolus. “If Larkin was only two years older than you he was a youth of twenty when the business was sold. He can’t have worked there more than four or five years.”
“I never asked my uncle about it. Larkin became a bit of a joke to us because I used to tell Gregory of the man’s impossible behaviour and he seemed well aware of his character.”
“I suppose there could be no question of blackmail, could there? Packinlay told me that your uncle used to pay him considerable sums.”
“I can’t think how or why. Both my grandfather and uncle were known to be the soul of honour in business. And I never heard anything discreditable about their private lives.”
“I’m only playing with possibilities. But I understand that he came here about the time your uncle started living with Marylin Sweeny.”
“Yes, but there was nothing secretive about that. They didn’t care who knew they lived together. It was only that her wretched husband wouldn’t divorce her. Besides, if it was blackmail, wasn’t he killing the goose that laid the golden eggs? No. I think it was sheer charity on Gregory’s part, though there may have been some family obligation. We never knew who was Larkin’s father.”
“I was going to ask you about that. Had he no family at all?”
“There was supposed to be a sister in Australia, but I never knew any details and never heard of him receiving a letter from her. He told me his parents were dead and he had no other relatives.”
“So far as the past is concerned we shall never get much farther, then? Short of going out to Calcutta and seeing whether anyone can tell us more.”
“You could do that, of course. I’d be damned interested to know the truth. I’ve made so many guesses. I suppose Larkin could have been a natural son of my grandfather or of my uncle. Even (though I don’t like the thought) of my father. All we can state certainly is that he had some connection with the family in Calcutta and that my uncle sent him a good deal of money while he was here.”
“Where did he live?”
�
��In the Moorish quarter, the medina. He had a little house of his own—really rather nice, in a way. You shall see it tomorrow. He did all the work of it himself, his own cooking and everything. Incidentally he was a very good cook.”
“Unusual quality in a murderer—or suicide.”
“Yes. I think I was the only person except Larkin himself who got the benefit of his skill. But I used to dine with him quite often, and exceptionally well.”
“Was that his only talent?”
Lance considered.
“He knew something of Mohammedan art,” he said, “as you’ll see tomorrow when you examine his little home. He had a fine collection of ceramics and some quite priceless old Syrian glass.”
“You’re showing me a new Larkin.”
“There was this other side to him, but he allowed no one to see it. Not more than two or three Europeans other than myself were in his house during his five years here.”
“You say Europeans,” said Carolus; “you mean he had Moorish friends?”
“Oh yes. He spoke fluent Arabic. He had several rather mysterious friendships with the people of the country.”
“I see.”
“When he went out it was to the market and back, never to any of the places where the English meet: the post office or one of the English bars. If any European tried to make his acquaintance he was offensive and he was never known to enter any of our houses.”
“Did he go away much?”
“Oh, yes. Frequently. I don’t know where because that was the sort of thing he never discussed. He would just lock up his little house and disappear for months at a time. His money was paid to him at Gibraltar, so he often went there. Some currency nonsense which I never understood. Otherwise he stayed in his little house. That didn’t mean you could see him, though. He would shut himself up for days on end, and if you knocked at his door when he was in one of those moods he wouldn’t even bother to put his head out of the window and tell you to go away. He just wouldn’t answer.”
“Did he drink at all?”
“No. Strict teetotaller.”
“So I understand. Yet there was a curious story on the Saragossa that one night, anyway, he was drunk.”
Lance Willick looked up sharply.
“What?” he said. “They told you that on the Saragossa? I don’t believe it.”
“Very little doubt about it. The steward saw him and he asked one of the apprentices into his cabin for a drink.”
“What an extraordinary story! Was there any sequel?”
“The Chief Mate went down and found him alone. The apprentice had either fled or was hiding.”
“How could he have hidden?”
“There was one place. The locker under the bunk.”
Lance could not get over this story.
“I really am surprised if it’s true,” he said, and returned to it more than once that evening.
“What else do you want to know about Larkin?” he asked. “Though you seem to know more about him than I do.”
“Oh no. It’s just that one curious story. Tell me, did he tell you he was going to England before he went—the time he went down to Barton Abbess, I mean?”
“Oh yes. He made no secret of it. He wanted a few weeks in London. He hadn’t been there since the war, I gathered.”
“That’s all he told you of his plans?”
“ ‘May go down and see old Gregory,’ he said. That’s all.”
“Didn’t he know that he’d been cut out of Gregory Willick’s Will?”
“I don’t think so for a moment. I did not know it myself at the time. In fact he told me he was expecting something really handsome.”
“He went home by air?”
“Yes. He left early on the Monday morning. I don’t know where he stayed—somewhere in London, presumably. On Friday afternoon he booked in at the Barton Bridge Hotel and on Saturday Gregory was murdered. ,He was back here on Sunday.”
“You remember it very clearly.”
“It happened that my birthday fell that week, on the Wednesday. I always give a little dinner-party in this restaurant, so I remember the day. Larkin never came, anyway, but I know he had left two mornings earlier.”
“I see. His return so soon was unexpected, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. But it wasn’t long before I read of my uncle’s murder.”
“You connected it?”
“How could I help it? I don’t say I actually suspected Larkin then, but I thought his sudden return had something to do with it.”
“Did you tackle him?”
“Well, not at once. I was laid up that week. A sort of gastric flu. I went over to Cadiz for the week-end on the day after my party and I must have caught a chill on the boat. It meant I couldn’t go home for the funeral. But as soon as I was better I tackled him. He denied at first that he had been anywhere near Barton Abbess. He had just got fed up in London and decided to come back, he said.”
“That was soon disproved.”
“Not for a few days, actually. The police appear to have been a bit slow this time. But it did come out, of course, that they wanted to interview him and that he had been staying at the local hotel at the time.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He couldn’t deny that he’d been down to Barton Abbess, but he still denied violently that he had had anything to do with the murder. Then he suddenly said, ‘I’ll go home and prove it, what’s more.’ ”
“That surprised you?”
“Not altogether. I still didn’t really think Larkin had done it. I was still pretty weak and if you’ve ever had gastric flu you’ll know that I didn’t much care at that time who had murdered poor old Gregory.”
“Yes. I’ve had it. I know the sensation.”
“Larkin insisted on going home by sea. That is one of the more puzzling points to me. He had flown out and back last time. Why should he suddenly insist on going in a slow cargo-boat? I have wondered whether he was already thinking of suicide. Or giving himself a means to commit it if he wanted. However, there it was. He had to wait five days for the Saragossa and in the meantime I felt much better and decided to go home myself. I got an air passage and left on the evening before he did. So of course I had been in London some days when the Saragossa arrived.”
“You were still on friendly terms with Larkin?”
“As friendly as we had ever been. Ours was never an intimate friendship. We were both residents of Tangier, and both dependants of Gregory’s. That’s all, really.”
“But you still didn’t suspect him strongly enough to feel uncomfortable with him?”
“I was never anything but uncomfortable with Larkin, I’m afraid. But I really couldn’t believe he’d murdered Gregory.”
“What finally convinced you?”
“I’m not sure that I am convinced. But his suicide does make it look like it.”
“The note he left was only typed. It might have been put there by anyone.”
“But surely he must have confided in someone on that ship? A man doesn’t make up his mind to commit suicide without telling someone, I believe.”
“He did, yes. He chose the man who would talk least whatever happened. The Second Mate. A man called Kutz.”
“I remember him. Oh, he told him, did he?”
“Yes. He told him that he had murdered Gregory Willick and was going to kill himself.”
“Then surely that settles it?”
“You’ll think I’m never satisfied, Willick. I admit that would be enough for most people, particularly as I believe Kutz is speaking the truth. But there’s something I don’t like about it. There’s something very odd about the whole thing.”
“In what way ‘odd’?”
“It’s too obvious. In places too idiotically obvious. I feel as though I was being dragged along by the evidence, forced to believe my eyes and ears and reason. All I’ve got against this overpowering case is an instinct and the fact that I’ve noticed one or two inconsistencie
s.”
“I see what you mean. The police seem to have accepted it, though. They’re not fools.”
“No. There was a CID man on the Saragossa coming out.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. Chap called Maltby.”
“I wonder what he wanted.”
“Oh, it was a different case. He told me they’ve written this one off.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Oh yes. Why not? It probably suits them.”
“But not you?”
“Not me. I want to get at the truth.”
Willick paused a moment.
“Good!” he said at last. “I hope you do. You said there were one or two little inconsistencies?”
“Nothing much. Larkin carried plenty of clothes but no spare shoes. He took the trouble to leave a suicide note, yet typed it and did not sign it, thus making it almost worthless. He apparently had no friends or relations in the world and was going home specially to murder Gregory, yet he waited five days before going to Barton Abbess. He booked in under a false name, yet left his passport unlocked for anyone to see who he was. There may be others, but those come to mind.”
Carolus felt that Lance Willick was looking at him very fixedly.
“Now you come to put it like that it is strange, isn’t it?”
“One other I’ve just remembered. He was a strict teetotaller, yet one night he not only got drunk but invited an apprentice to drink with him.”
“I think I can explain that,” said Willick. “He antagonized everyone, deliberately if you like, but he was human enough to have sudden fits of loneliness and self-pity. That may have been what happened that night. The poor wretch broke down. He was going home either to fight a case or confess. Who knows? He just couldn’t take it and swallowed some whisky and wanted to talk.”
Carolus shook his head.
“No. It’s not as simple as that. He had no drink from the steward. He must have brought it aboard with him. He kept it locked in one of his suit-cases.”
Lance Willick was staring incredulously at Carolus.
“That’s extraordinary,” he said at last. “Now is there anything else I can tell you?”
Carolus openly referred to some notes.