by Roger Bax
Now came the practical task of making and testing the dummy name-plate. Cross had enjoyed pitting his present ingenuity against the skill and persistence which the police would undoubtedly show in due course. Now he had to do something with his hands, and he had no special aptitude. Still, it shouldn’t be a very difficult job, and his confidence was growing. If the name-plate were a failure, the whole plot failed, too. If it were a success, all else seemed possible.
The first thing was to get hold of a suitable piece of canvas. It should not be too thick, because the paint would tend to stiffen it. Cross had noticed that there was a roll of canvas aboard Truant, and both he and Geoffrey had keys to the boat. But there was really no need to run that risk. For the same reason, it would be better not to take paint from the Works. At lunch-time on the Monday, therefore, he ran up to town in the car, stopped at Gamages, and bought a roll of deck-chair canvas, a pot of broken-white paint, some white undercoat, and a pot of black paint. He also bought a selection of brushes.
Making the dummy took a lot more time than he had expected. First, he had to get the exact measurements of the name-plate in Welford Avenue, over which the dummy was to fit. That meant an expedition after dark, with the car parked a couple of streets away, and some rather nerve-racking fumbling with a tape-measure under the light of the street lamp. He took a two-way measurement of the cross-piece and ran a piece of string right round it to get the circumference. He had made up his mind that if he were seen and accosted during any of these rather peculiar operations he would say that he was working on an invention for a new and cheaper sort of street sign. But he took very good care not to be seen, for in such an event he doubted very much whether it would be safe to go on with the undertaking.
Having taken the measurements of the Welford Avenue plate, he had to go back to Hamley Avenue and make a sketch. He did this by daylight, sitting in the car with a newspaper at the back of his sketch-pad. The lettering was very plain and simple, and he decided it would be quite sufficient if he could get the spacing approximately correct. It took only a moment to measure the size of the type. One or two people walked along the road while he was sitting in the car, but no one gave him more than a passing glance, and certainly no one would connect him with the name-plate.
In the flat that evening he locked the door, spread newspapers all over the carpet, opened up his paint-pots, and went to work. The letters on the real sign were embossed, but he hoped that nothing so complicated would be necessary for his purpose. First, he carefully pencilled in the letters HAMLEY AVENUE, copying the sketch which he had made in the car. Then he painted all round the letters with the white undercoat, brushing it well into the canvas.
It dried overnight, and Cross was glad to see that the paint had stiffened the canvas appreciably. Next evening he put on the top coat of white and again had to wait for it to dry. There was still the lettering to be blacked in, and a black line to be drawn as a border round the whole of the lettering, giving it a neat and authentic finish. Finally, he painted in four dummy screw marks. Even then the most difficult part of the job was still to be done – the cutting of the canvas and the bending and sewing of the edges to make it a shallow tray of the exact size. Not until the fifth night was the task completed. Cross surveyed the finished product with a craftsman’s satisfaction. Even in the bright light of the flat, it looked remarkably like what it was supposed to be. He rolled it up tight, and just managed to squeeze it into his overcoat pocket. He unrolled it again and examined it carefully. The paint, thinly applied and well soaked into the canvas, had not cracked. The lettering was as good as it had been before.
Now the dummy had to be put to the test on the spot. Cross took even greater precautions on this occasion to make sure that he was unobserved. On a dark and drizzly night, he drove through Welford Avenue and the roads on either side of the avenue and made sure there was no policeman about. When he felt satisfied that he would not be disturbed, he approached the name-plate, pulled the rolled-up dummy from his pocket, and began to ease it over the cross-piece. It was a bit of a squeeze, but that was a good fault. After he’d wriggled it about a bit, it slid home. He found that he had scratched his hands a little on the garden hedge which pressed against the name-plate at the back. On the night he must wear gloves.
He walked to the kerb and inspected his handiwork. Perfect! In the murky lamplight it was quite impossible to tell that the name-plate wasn’t real. Even though he knew it was a fake, he could detect no flaw at that distance. An unsuspecting stranger would certainly never dream of doubting its genuineness. The only risk was that it might be difficult to decipher in a fog. Cross made a mental note to bring a torch with him on the night.
He eased the dummy off the plate, rolled it up carefully, and thrust it back into his capacious pocket. Elated, he strolled back to the car. There was still one risk, he realized, against which he could not guard. Since he would have to put the dummy in place before he arrived with his witnesses, it would mean that for something like half an hour on the night of the murder Welford Avenue would be Hamley Avenue for any passer-by. But if a policeman, or any person with local knowledge, happened to spot it in the fog – which seemed most unlikely – such a person would undoubtedly go right up to the sign to see what had happened, discover the dummy, and take it off. And naturally, if it had been removed when Cross arrived with his witnesses, the whole plan would be washed out. There remained the outside chance that a stranger might be confused by the sign and report the fact as a curious incident after the murder had been discovered. But that was really such a remote possibility that it could be ignored.
The time now seemed to have come for the drawing up of a draft schedule for the night of the murder. Cross worked on it with care.
7.15 p.m. Leave flat at Alum Court by car, with dummy, weapon, torch, gloves, rubber soles.
7.30 p.m. Arrive Welford Avenue. Hide weapon inside Uncle’s gate. Fix dummy on name-plate.
7.45 p.m. Arrive at roundabout. Pick up likely witnesses.
8.00 p.m. Arrive Welford Avenue (now marked Hamley Avenue) with witnesses. Draw their attention to name-plate and time. Call at Uncle’s on excuse of asking way, and bump him off. Ring neighbour and report accident. Remove dummy. Put weapon in pocket. Drive away.
8.20 p.m. (approx.). Arrive at witnesses’ destination, establish identity with them (under lamp?), make note of their address.
So far, so good, Cross thought. He was beginning to feel a reassuring familiarity with the plot, so much had he lived with it in the past week or two. He was well aware of the mass of detail still to be dealt with – he had several pages of notes. Little things like getting rid of the weapon, for instance – the river would probably be the best place for that. And disposing of the dummy – the deadliest piece of evidence. He would have to burn that, and see that the ashes were scattered. He could burn it in his fire-grate, if he were very careful not to leave any trace.
A few dress rehearsals were needed now. He might find in practice that his timing was too optimistic for a foggy night. He must get to know the district perfectly so that he could find his way with precision, however bad the conditions. That meant that he would have to make a mental note of landmarks rarely observed by drivers. He might even have to provide special landmarks of his own. He must make himself master of the streets. When he had done so he would test the whole time-table again and again, until it worked so smoothly that nothing could go wrong.
Meanwhile, he must be very careful. He locked up the dummy and his notes in a drawer of his bureau. The unused part of the canvas he burned, piece by piece, in his grate. And one evening he drove out into the country and threw the paint-pots and brushes into a pond. Clearing up as you went along – that, he told himself, was the way to make a success of premeditated crime.
*
He was well aware that his plan had one great and ineradicable weakness. It could not be put into operation until the weather was suitable. The sort of fog he needed was not likely to
occur before late November, and even then it certainly couldn’t be relied on. He could remember whole winters when there had been no fog to speak of in London. Not many, but one or two. However, it was reasonable to hope for at least one fairly thick patch, and he would have to be as patient as he could until it came.
That was the trouble – being patient! How could he be patient, knowing what was hanging over him? In the daytime he could sometimes believe that he was exaggerating the danger – that his luck might be in, that it might be years before the facts were discovered, even that they would never be discovered. But that was in the daytime. At night his thoughts became unbearable. Sometimes he would wake wet with fear, shaking and struggling, and crying out. Uncle Charles had asked him how he was sleeping and had suggested tablets. Cross preferred alcohol. He drank heavily, and usually alone. The difficulty was, he’d done so much drinking at the camp that small quantities had no effect on him. He guessed there wasn’t much blood left in his alcohol stream!
Also, drinking was very expensive. Buying all the whisky he needed in the Black Market was ruinous. His flat was costly, too, and so were all his tastes. It irked him to be short of money, and he found two thousand a year, after tax, quite inadequate. What he needed was a capital of a hundred thousand pounds, which he could spend at the rate of five thousand a year for twenty years, with a bit of interest thrown in. The way he was living now, twenty years would probably see him through! That didn’t worry him. The main thing was to have a good time now, before youth slipped away and hot blood cooled.
The thought of his uncle, looking so healthy and with all that cash at the bank, was unendurable. It wasn’t even as though Cross had any interest in the Works – the whole thing bored him. It seemed intolerable that he should have to go along there every day, putting on an act, just to keep on the right side of the old boy. He loathed the sight of his office, the smell of linseed oil, the drab monotony of business and the faces of all the people he had to deal with. Wealth and freedom – they were the only things that attracted him. And neither was any good without the other.
In this frame of mind, the perfecting of his murder plan was a recreation. It occupied his thoughts, it was exciting, and it offered some hope of an early release. With anything like normal luck the night of the murder should fall within the next three months – perhaps even in a week or two. At least, he must act on that assumption. One of the things he still had to do – and he must do it quickly – was to set the scene domestically at Welford Avenue. It had to be arranged that his uncle should be at home and alone on the night; that Cross should be expected, and – preferably – that Geoffrey should arrive just after the kill.
In the course of one or two social visits that Cross had paid, without any great enthusiasm, to his uncle’s house, he had been able to make some useful discoveries. It appeared that Dorothy, the daily girl, arrived at the house each weekday morning except Saturdays and finished her work around five. That meant that she was not likely to be an obstacle, and could be ignored. There had been a maid as well, but she had been called up during the war, and after several unsatisfactory attempts it had been decided not to replace her. The housekeeper, Mrs. Armstrong, was a woman of regular habits, as befitted a former hospital sister. She had come to take charge of Uncle Charles’s establishment soon after his wife had died, and ‘taken charge’ she had. In Cross’s view she was a dragon. She had never taken to ‘Mister Arthur’, and ‘Mister Arthur’ had never taken to her. It was essential that Mrs. Armstrong should be safely out of the way.
Cross soon found out that Thursday was her evening ‘off’, and that it was her routine habit to visit her sister at Ealing. Instead of giving Uncle Charles a hot meal on Thursdays – as she did with conscientious regularity on other nights – she always left something cold for him and departed soon after tea. She never returned before ten, and never after ten-thirty. That left the way clear for the murder, with an ample margin of safety. But it also meant that Cross needed not just a foggy day, but a foggy Thursday. He felt that the opportunities were becoming dangerously narrowed.
When he first realized how seldom Mrs. Armstrong was away, Cross almost felt like abandoning his cherished plan and starting again from the beginning. Was it not more important to play for a quick decision than for safety? What persuaded him to wait and see was the discovery that Geoffrey, now living with his father, was also away during the early part of each Thursday evening. The lectures he was giving at the Staff College had been fixed for Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the winter. It seemed that he lectured between five and six-thirty, had a drink and dined in the Mess at Greenwich, and then drove himself home, arriving soon after eight-thirty.
This arrangement fitted in so perfectly with Cross’s scheme that it seemed to him like an act of Providence, of which advantage must be taken. If Hollison were killed at about eight o’clock, and Geoffrey turned up soon afterwards, he might have some trouble proving that he had not done the murder himself. In any case, the more suspicion that fell on Geoffrey, the less the police would be able to concentrate on Cross.
It was still necessary that Cross’s projected visit to his uncle on the night should be accounted for in a natural manner. It would not do for him to have arranged to call on his uncle on that particular evening if such a visit were an unusual event. Cross therefore set to work to make it usual. On the next Thursday he suggested that he should drop in at Welford Avenue after dinner. Hollison was delighted, and the evening proved a success. Cross arrived about eight, having dined early at the flat. His uncle had just finished his meal, and Geoffrey came in soon afterwards. They had a glass or two of port and then, at Hollison’s suggestion, played cut-throat until midnight.
After that it was the easiest thing in the world to make the Thursday meeting a regular one. Hollison liked to feel that he could rely on a definite evening each week for the family gathering that had always been his wish. Sometimes they played cards; sometimes – if Geoffrey was tired after his lecture – Cross and Hollison would play chess; sometimes they just sat around, smoking, drinking and chatting. Geoffrey, full of zest for life and work, always had plenty to say.
Cross realized that he had better establish from the beginning the sort of procedure which would be necessary on the night. He made a practice of dining early at Alum Court – always a good thing to do if you wanted anything decent to eat! – and of arriving at Welford Avenue punctually at eight.
There was one subtlety which rather pleased him. On the night of the murder he would be supposed not to have called at his uncle’s at eight o’clock. But the murderer would have called, and presumably would have knocked – and the knock might have been heard. With this in mind, Cross got into the way from the beginning of announcing his arrival on Thursdays by tapping on whichever window was lighted as he stood in the porch – the dining-room being on one side and the lounge on the other. Uncle Charles’s hearing was still acute, and he never failed to hear the tapping. Always he would open the door with an eager, welcoming smile, giving Cross’s arm an affectionate grasp as he went in. The unusual knock on the night of the murder would suggest a stranger.
As the weeks went by the three men settled securely into the Thursday routine. Cross felt it was like running in an engine before putting a car on the road. Sometimes, as he sat drinking Hollison’s whisky, he felt quite jubilant at his own cleverness; but occasionally he became morose, for the weather remained mild, and week after week he had to listen to the hale old man enthusing about his dreary business or ridiculous plans for sailing in the summer.
Talk of sailing turned Cross’s thoughts to Truant. He was planning his campaign like a military operation, and good commanders always provided for withdrawal in case of defeat. He would probably not have bothered about this if Truant had not offered an obvious way out, but since this means of escape from a tight corner was all ready for him, if was just as well he should know how to take advantage of it. He began, therefore, to show a rather more intelligent inter
est in the yacht. One Saturday he even suggested that he and Geoffrey should go down to the river and run the engines for a while, and he took the opportunity to make sure that all necessary stores were really aboard. He knew that his knowledge of chart work and coastal navigation was negligible, but in a real emergency, and if the weather were good, he thought he could probably motor the boat over to France or Holland. At least it was a comforting illusion.
CHAPTER IV
The mild weather persisted until the end of November. Cross felt that there was no point in making trial runs yet, since the timing would be completely different in fog. But repeatedly he drove over the ground at night to get used to the route. The roundabout proved to be an ideal starting place for the main journey. Five important roads ran out of it, and it would be readily understandable that he should take the wrong one on a thick night. His difficulty, indeed, would be to avoid taking the wrong one. He decided that the best pick-up point for his witnesses would be just beyond the three bus-stops. From there, moving on round the circle, the second road was the one which led in the direction of Hamley Avenue; the third was the road for the Welford Avenue district. He had to take the third, and let it be supposed that he had taken the second. He would need, of course, witnesses who wanted to go in the general direction of Welford Avenue, otherwise it would be difficult to explain to the police afterwards why he had been so generous as to pick them up.
Cross now began to take a great interest in kerbstones – his main guide in a fog. He already had a fog-lamp fitted low down on the Vauxhall, which threw a beam on to the edge of the pavement. Inspecting the roundabout on foot in daylight, he discovered that just before the Welford Avenue turning there was a broken kerb. But could he identify a broken kerb in fog? Even with the greatest care the chance was that he would miss it.