Dead Man’s Shoes

by Bruce, Leo

“He waited till the night before the ship would dock, then, before she entered the Thames estuary, at about one a.m., began to put his plan into operation. Behind the door of his cabin, which he kept invariably locked, he assumed the character of Lance Willick. He then typed out his little suicide note. He decided against signing it. He had created a signature for Larkin which he used for his cheques in Gibraltar, but he was never quite sure whether handwriting experts could distinguish this as his own. He had never, as Larkin, committed to paper anything but a signature. So he left the thing unsigned.

  “He then made his Larkin effigy from a suit stuffed with other clothes, the specially made boots, the padding, the glasses, the jewellery, the special denture and anything else which might show the artificiality of Larkin. He weighted this heavily. He left some of his clothes in the cabin, of course. Finally he spent the remainder of the hour obliterating with consummate care every possible finger-print in the cabin, not forgetting the typewriter keys. He had trained himself to do this without a possibility of omission. He knew that one of his own finger-prints here might hang him.

  “Now came his moment of greatest risk. He had only about six yards to go from his cabin to the rail of the ship, but for that distance he would be in deadly danger of discovery. Once his effigy was in the water he could be found, and still have a chance by saying that he had stowed away in Tangier in order to watch Larkin, or some such story. It would be thin and might not come off, but it would be possible. If he was caught now, with the effigy in his arms, he would be hanged.

  “He looked out of his door, saw no one, hurled ‘Larkin’ over the rail and shouted ‘Man overboard!’ For this he could use neither his own natural voice nor Larkin’s; the result was that unpleasant screeching shout which so impressed those who heard it.

  “He then hurried back to his cabin, but he was not quite quick enough in leaving the deck, for Mrs Roper caught a glimpse of someone, she couldn’t tell who, disappearing. He returned to his cabin and, acting according to plan, lifted the bunk and concealed himself in the locker under it. It was this hiding-place which was revealed to me when I heard about Dickie Bryce’s drinking with Larkin. Whether or not he used it …”

  “I didn’t, as a matter of fact. I cleared out.”

  “I saw that it was exactly what Lance needed. It would not have been large enough for him in the character and with the size of Larkin, but for his natural self it was just sufficient. I will admit that before I had realized the truth I had played with the idea of Larkin having concealed himself there, but had dismissed it as impossible. It was only just large enough for Lance’s natural self.

  “He stayed there until the cabin was locked, and returned to it next day, until the ship docked, the police came on board and they and the Press had gone. Then he went quietly to the saloon and asked for Captain Bidlake, as if he had just come on board. Once again all had gone splendidly, according to plan. ‘Larkin’ was at the bottom of the sea, and, as Lance, he could now go down to Barton Abbess and take over his inheritance with a peaceful mind, if not a clear conscience. Very soon he heard that the police accepted the version he had prepared for them, so there was nothing more to worry about.”

  Gunner came in and spoke to Captain Bidlake, who nodded. Gunner then appeared with a vast mound of sandwiches and then another, which he set down among those assembled.

  “That’s a welcome sight,” said Mr Gusset. “I assure you we’re most glad of them, steward.”

  “That’s all right,” said Gunner; “I was a suspect myself. Gives you quite an appetite, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s funny, isn’t it?” wheezed Mrs Gunn. “But you do feel peckish though you’d think it would put you off hearing all this about murder and that and to think that he wasn’t a real man that Larkin, at least he wasn’t himself as you might say, well I always knew …”

  “There was something funny about him. Yes, I know you did,” retorted Mrs Hoppy.

  “I’ve really got very little more to tell you,” said Carolus. “I cannot say at what precise moment I realized the truth. The first key to it was Larkin’s advertisement of himself as murderer. But there were already other leaders. The only man who really had a motive for killing Gregory was Lance, and he certainly could not have done it, as he himself pointed out, in his own character. Then there was the fact that Larkin knew of Gregory’s afternoon walk, its time and its route, and knew the way to get to a point in the woods at which he could wait for Gregory. The only person he could have asked about this in Barton Abbess was Mrs Gunn, and she wouldn’t have known in such detail, if at all.”

  “I should think not …” began Mrs Gunn.

  “Shsh!” said Mr Gorringer.

  “It was when I reached Tangier that the thing grew really clear. Lance talked convincingly enough about Larkin, yet I could not help feeling it was too slick, as though it was rehearsed. And the more he tried to make Larkin sound like a real person, the more paradoxical and fantastic he became. Then there was Lance’s anxiety to know whether Mr Kutz had told me of the conversation about suicide. ‘Surely he must have confided in someone on that ship?’ he pleaded. Once Lance quite put his foot in it by over-elaboration. In his efforts to make Larkin materialize he said he was a wonderful cook, forgetting that it would be obvious from supplies and materials in the little house that when he stayed there he lived on bits of tinned stuff. His attempt to cover up on this was plucky, but feeble. Larkin’s house, in any case, was the most un-lived-in place I’ve ever seen.

  “If I needed more there was the appearance of Michaelis, a man who really would kill for money and who warned me to get out of Tangier after I had shown Lance that I already knew a little too much and was discovering more. The next day he tried to kill me, and only failed by my great good luck. He could only have been employed by Lance.

  “There was a point about this which puzzled me for a long time. How did Lance know that I was going to the house in the medina for finger-prints at a certain time? Then I remembered that Priggley told me Lance had called on the previous evening while I was out and had stopped to chat. I suppose you must have mentioned it?” Carolus addressed Rupert Priggley.

  “Yes, I think I did. I’d no idea that Lance was suspect …”

  “Priggley!” said Mr Gorringer. “That was indiscreet.”

  “Most revealing of all, perhaps, was the extraordinary absence of finger-prints. Larkin left every kind of evidence except finger-prints. In his cabin, in his house, not one was to be found. The answer was, of course, that he hadn’t got any—of his own, I mean. He cleaned up in the cabin. He didn’t need to in the house. It was quite natural that Lance Willick’s should be there.

  “Then there was Lance’s so-called alibi in Cadiz during the time of the murder. I knew it wouldn’t be worth a light, because by this time I knew the truth. But I pretended to follow it up in the hope of getting some evidence of Lance’s steps five years ago to create Larkin. Mrs Gibbons, of course, had had her diary filled in for her, as it were. Written it herself, as Lance had told her. But through her I found the dentist and heard about the special denture. I think if I had stayed longer in Cadiz and spoke Spanish I would have found both the bootmaker and the oculist, for it was to Cadiz that Lance went to prepare. Eric Luck had told me that he was two months there before the appearance of Larkin.

  “I telephoned Lance from Gibraltar and told him that I had confirmed his alibi. I appear to have convinced him, for he decided that I was harmless and called off Michaelis, whom he had sent to Gibraltar to obliterate me and all my theories with me.

  “Finally there was Packinlay’s knowledge that Lance had asked Gregory for money to be sent to Larkin.

  “But with all this I had no more than a story based on inference and circumstantial evidence—until tonight. I sent Lance a telegram inviting him here, but I did so without any real hope. By speaking of ‘full details of the end of Larkin’, I showed him that I knew the truth, but I did not think that even that would tempt him to come.
His only hope was to kill me before I had spoken, but I thought he would realize it was too late for that. In case anything of the sort was attempted, I asked Mr Booth to remain in concealment while watching the saloon.

  “One thing I certainly never anticipated was that he would revive Larkin. I don’t know now how he did it in the time, unless he had spare boots and a spare denture, glasses and padding. He only had three days to prepare. But Lance always did the unexpected and, I suppose, the cleverest thing. He probably left a car somewhere near. He hoped to come on board as Larkin, dispose of me by shooting me with a pistol fitted with a silencer, and before the alarm could be raised have got away among the warehouses. It was a desperate hope, but his only one. The key of the saloon door, he knew, was kept on the outside, and by locking it he would give himself a few moments’ start. But when he entered the saloon he was confused for a moment by the dim lights, and did not at once see me. His thick glasses, as always, worried him, and he raised his left hand to lift them. That gave Mr Booth the moment he needed.

  “Somewhere not far away would be his own clothes, and it is quite possible that he meant to return in his own capacity, apologize for his lateness and be very, very sorry to hear of the murder by Larkin of the unfortunate Carolus Deene.”

  THE END