Yours affectionately,
Louie.”
This was queer stuff if you like. What was it Spike Reilly had said in his voice of delirious triumph? “I know—I know—Maud Millicent Simpson—what have you got to say to that? If I can find her, I can find you—can’t I? And I’m going to find you—” Maud Millicent Simpson—Mrs. Simpson—encountered in a bus sixteen years after some unspecified event—a person whom it was safer not to know—“If I can find her, I can find you—can’t I?”
Peter thought Garrett would be interested. He put the letter away carefully and went on turning out the pocket-book.
Notes. Spike Reilly carried quite a lot of money—a great deal more than one would have expected—enough for a long journey. That made you think a bit.… A passport made out the name of James Peter Reilly. So wherever he was bound for with that bulging pocket-book, it was under his own name.…
But Pierre Reil here. Why?… Protective colouring—a most natural desire to melt into the landscape. Riel in Belgium. Reilly—well, where would one be Reilly? England, Scotland, Ireland, or the United States of America. Quite a nice wide field for speculation, but Peter had a hunch that the first and nearest of these countries would fill the bill. He reflected in passing that the photograph on the passport wasn’t very much like the man on the bed. Of course he was dead.… His own passport photograph would have fitted a dozen people he knew.
The thought just slid over the surface of his mind and was forgotten, because the next thing that came out of the pocket-book was a sheet of cheap greyish paper with lines of figures written across it—
10. 16. 27. 1. 103. 8. 9.… They went on like that, row after row of them, all down one side of the sheet and all down the other. Peter’s finger-tips tingled. He slipped the pocket-book back into the pocket from which it had come and threw the coat across the chair, because this, most unmistakably, was the goods. A cipher, and Mr. Spike Reilly’s marching orders no doubt. His eye travelled down the paper, looking for repetitions of the same number or group of numbers—something which might stand for the commonest letter E, or for such words as a, and, or the.
When he had turned the page and come to the bottom of it, he whistled softly. There was no help that way. He began to wonder—and then with extreme suddenness he stopped wondering.
A pencil mark—a thing which he had seen without noticing, and which came up now as invisible writing comes up when you hold it to the fire. A pencil mark.… He had the suit-case open and the paper-covered novel out of it in a flash. A well thumbed book. That ought to have attracted his attention at the very outset. Read and re-read by the look of it, the pages dog-eared and thumbed—dirty pages, with here and there a pencil mark, and here and there a smear as if indiarubber had been used. He called himself a dull fool for having seen no more than a dirty trashy novel, because now he was prepared to eat the pages if they did not hold the key to the cipher.
He went through into his own room again and sat down to Her Great Romance, the sheetful of figures propped before him.
10. 16. 27. 1. 103. 8. 9.… On the simplest plan this would be page 10 line 16, page 27 line 1, page 103 line 8. But then how did you know which word or letter of line 16 to pick? If it was a letter, perhaps the third number gave it—say the twenty-seventh letter of the sixteenth line on the tenth page. No, that was a wash-out, because in the next group it would give you page 1 line 103, which was absurd.… Come back to page 10 line 16.
He flicked the pages over and found the place. Round about line 16 a girl called Gloria was putting on a yellow hat. The Y of yellow had a faint pencil mark under it. It was the second letter in the line, the first being A—“a yellow hat”—just like that.
Peter wrote the Y down on a slip of paper and turned to page 27 line 1. The first letter of line 1 had a just visible pencil mark under it. It was an O—“‘One life, one love, one fate,’ said Lord St. Maur.” Peter said “Well, well,” and wrote the O down after the Y.
On page 103 line 8 the ninth letter was marked, and it was a U. Peter said “Eureka!” He had a perfectly whole possible word on his paper, and he saw how the thing was worked. The first number, 10, was a page number, and the second, 16, was a line number, and the next number, 27, was a page number; but to get the letter number of page 10 line 16, you took the 2 from 27, which was the next page number. The next group gave page 27 line 1, and the 1 from the next page number, 103, as the letter number. And so forth and so on. Simplicity itself, and a quite unbreakable cipher if Spike Reilly hadn’t been so free with his pencil marks, and so careless as to carry only one novel in his suit-case.
If Her Great Romance had been unmarked and lost in a crowd of other similar romances, a lot of things might have happened differently. One man might have lived, and more than one might have died. Terry Clive would probably have come to a sticky end.
As it was, it took Peter no more than a quarter of an hour to collect the dotted letters and arrange them in words and sentences. He tried to hold his mind back from making sense of them, because something kept telling him to hurry, but some of the meaning got through and he finished the job in a state of tingling excitement. The deciphered message ran:
“You are to come over here. I have work for you. Double pay and bonuses. Cross Thursday. Go Preedo Library Archmount Street. S.W. noon Friday. Say you expect call. Await instructions.”
There was no signature.
Peter sat and looked at the words. This was Tuesday. If one crossed on Thursday as the note suggested, one would naturally make a point of being on hand to take that call in Preedo’s Library, wherever that might be. And someone could be told off to find out who was at the other end of the line. A word to Garrett would fix that all right. These thoughts moved on the surface. They fell into place and made a neat picture. But underneath something disturbed and disturbing took shape and came blundering into view.
Peter got to his feet, got to the door, got to the head of the stairs, and stood there listening.… Nothing. Nobody. He went back to his own room, half drew out his pocket-book, and slid it back again.
Crazy—that’s what it was.
Well, with a strong enough motive you took a crazy risk.
In this case just how strong was the motive?
And the answer to that was, ask Garrett.
For his own part, he had an idea that Garrett was fussed—and Garrett didn’t fuss easily.
He thought about Garrett’s last letter: “The thing is a snowball. I don’t know where it’s going to roll or what it’s going to pick up on the way. It started with picture-lifting, fairly plastered itself with blackmail from the insurance companies, and has now added a murder. No knowing where it’ll stop—” Well, he had been roped in because he had stumbled on something odd, and because he wasn’t a regular agent. The novelist is a privileged Nosey Parker. It is his job to watch people and listen to them. It flatters some, and flutters some but no one suspects him of being in with Scotland Yard or the Foreign Office.
Peter contemplated the impossible—the plan which had come surging up in the middle of his neat picture—and found angles from which the impossible began to look possible. Of course if the doctor were to come butting in, the whole thing blew up. But there didn’t seem to be any sign of the doctor. The Dupins didn’t hurry, hadn’t hurried, wouldn’t hurry. There would be time enough and to spare.
No harm in having a look at the passports anyhow. He went through into the next room. Took out Reilly’s pocketbook, extracted Reilly’s passport. Took out his own pocketbook, extracted his own passport.
Well, here they were, side by side.
James Peter Reilly.
Accompanied by his wife? (Apparently and most fortunately not. Children ditto.)
National status—British subject by birth.
He turned the page.
Place and date of birth—Glasgow, 1907. (Glasgow Irish, was he?)
Domicile—Glasgow.
Colour of eyes—grey.
Colour of hair
—brown.
Special peculiarities—scar on back of right hand.
Peter laughed suddenly.
“And that settles it,” he said, “because—” He lifted his own right hand and made a fine wide gesture. The impossible, thus warmly invited, advanced and made itself at home. Peter’s hand with the long white scar across the knuckles came down on his own passport.
John Peter Carmichael Talbot. (Also, thank heaven, without a wife or any other encumbrances.)
National status—British subject by birth.
And over page:
Place and date of birth—Harrogate, 1910.
Domicile—Europe, but the passport said London.
Colour of eyes—grey.
Colour of hair—brown.
Special peculiarities—scar on back of right hand.
“And a very nice usual place to have a scar. Mine was old Ellen Updale’s cat—the time Peggy and I did her up in red white and blue streamers on Armistice Night. I wonder what his was. One of life’s unsolved mysteries. Not my fault if the doings at Preedo’s Library are another of them. Well now, what about the photographs? They’re the real snag.”
He stared at the two passport photographs. Spike Reilly had a good bit more hair on him than Peter Talbot. The photograph showed no parting, and a sort of all-over, brushed-back appearance.
Peter went into his own room, tousled his hair, damped it, and slicked it back. The effect was quite revolting, but a good deal more like the photograph of Mr. Reilly. Spike Reilly was clean shaven, and so was Peter Talbot. He went over to the glass and experimented. He could get that sulky twist of the mouth and the frown between the eyes well enough. With chewing-gum to bulge the cheeks, he ought to be able to scrape past anyone who hadn’t an unnaturally suspicious mind. The trouble was that Suspicion was that sort of bloke’s first, last, and middle name.
All the same he could do it. He felt the sort of certainty with which a leap is measured and accomplished before the muscles tense and the body rises. He could get away with Spike Reilly’s passport.
But what about Spike Reilly getting away with his? The Dupins had seen them both. Well, it had been very, very dark in the office—rain outside and thrift within—one didn’t waste good electricity at four o’clock in the afternoon. The Dupins had seen precious little of Peter Talbot—a hat, a raincoat and a muffler. As for Spike Reilly, no one is surprised if a dead man looks a bit different from his photograph when alive.
Of course he mustn’t let the Dupins see him again—not to say see him. He must leave at once while the light was bad—pay something, not too much, and get out. A corpse in the next room would be a good enough excuse. Yes, that was it. He’d march down with his suit-case, call for a drink—he could do with one—say he hadn’t bargained for corpses, and clear out. They couldn’t stop him.
“Anyhow, here goes!”
He had plumped for the crazy adventure, and the next thing to do was to set about it with the same careful attention to detail as if this were chapter one of a thriller, and he villain or hero with a crime to conceal. Not murder, thank heaven. But he would certainly be in a nasty mess with the local police if he was found out trying to pass off the man on the bed as the corpse of John Peter Carmichael Talbot.
None of his own clothes were marked. He didn’t suppose Spike Reilly went round labelled, but he would have to make sure.
He made sure.
The next thing was to change pocket-books. He emptied both and made a thoughtful redistribution of the contents. There must be plenty to identify the dead man. Half a dozen cards inscribed Mr. Peter Talbot made a good start. Then the notes—Spike Reilly could keep his own money to bury him. And he had better have a letter or two as well as the cards. An invitation from Marion von Stein—“Oh, Peter, I think your poems are great. No, really I mean it. Do come and read me some more …” And Aunt Fanny’s last weekly budget—“And, my dear boy, I do wish you would give up this roving life and settle down. And I haven’t even a proper photograph. You have always been so obstinate about being taken. I am sure that snapshot on my mantelpiece isn’t a bit like you. I was showing it to Terry yesterday, and she said it might be anyone, and Miss Hollinger said so too. But of course Terry hasn’t ever seen you, as I’ve only just got to know her. And I don’t think Miss Hollinger had ever met you either, but she says she did once, when you brought me home after that matinee I enjoyed so much. We met her at the gate, and it was nearly dark. So she couldn’t really give an opinion about the photograph, because she didn’t really see you. And I told her it wasn’t a bit like you, and it isn’t. And now I must tell you about Terry. I have made a new friend—you will laugh, but I feel she really is a friend—a most charming girl called Terry Clive, I believe it is short for Theresa. I missed the step coming down off a number nineteen bus, and she very kindly picked me up and brought me home. I should so much like you to meet her.…”
Peter showed all his teeth in a grin. Miss Fanny Talbot’s nets were so perseveringly and so artlessly spread. Her letter went in on top of Marion von Stein’s, and the pocket-book into the pocket of Spike Reilly’s coat. Peter added his own cigarette-case with the initials J.P.T. and took in reluctant exchange a much more ornate affair without initials at all.
“Well, that’s that!” he said.
There was a sound of footsteps on the stair. He went through into his own room and shut the door.
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About the Author
Patricia Wentworth (1878–1961) was one of the masters of classic English mystery writing. Born in India as Dora Amy Elles, she began writing after the death of her first husband, publishing her first novel in 1910. In the 1920s, she introduced the character who would make her famous: Miss Maud Silver, the former governess whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting served to disguise a keen intellect. Along with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Miss Silver is the definitive embodiment of the English style of cozy mysteries.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1936 by Patricia Wentworth
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3344-2
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Patricia Wentworth, Dead or Alive
Dead or Alive Page 26