There's Trouble Brewing

by Nicholas Blake

  ‘Phillips! Hempson! Look out!’ he shouted. ‘Man escaping. Sorn! Stop him!’

  Gabriel Sorn had evidently lost his nerve. They could hear him tumbling down the stairs, screaming at the top of his voice. Even after he had run straight into the stout arms of Constable Phillips he continued to struggle and yell. Thus it was that the police inside the brewery failed to hear the faint sound of a whistle from outside: but for the fact that Nigel had been half-expecting this move and had run in the opposite direction from Sorn, towards the entrance of the brewery, the murderer would have claimed another victim and perhaps escaped for good.

  Constable Gurney, from his concealment near the side-door of the yard, had observed a figure moving stealthily through it and into the brewery some five minutes before. He had dutifully looked at the illuminated hands of his wrist-watch. Ten forty-four. He moved unobtrusively across to the door, locked it, and leant his solid figure against it. All was going according to plan. If the chap tried to get out this way again he’d get a bit of a shock. It was Gurney, however, who got the shock, as it happened He was no less stolid, and no more superstitious, than most Dorset countrymen, which is saying a good deal—both ways. He heard the Priory clock booming quarter to eleven. A few minutes after he heard Sorn screaming, his screams horribly deadened by the solid and invisible wall of the brewery. He heard a police whistle shrill once. ‘OK,’ he thought, ‘one blast, stay put!’ He leant against the door, staring speculatively high up into the darkness whence this pandemonium had arisen.

  Suddenly he heard a faint, scurrying patter of feet, coming in his direction. It all happened too quickly for his slow brain to catch up with. A small figure was scurrying along, almost noiselessly, like the shadow of smoke on a windy day, streaking towards him, moving in a horribly unerring arc from the brewery entrance to the side door. The figure was only eight paces from him when Gurney switched on his torch and focused. What he saw by its light was so unexpected, so appalling to his simple mind, that for a second he stood gaping, his heart stopped dead inside him, he felt he was going to faint. The figure, in its swerving course, ran at the beam of Gurney’s torch; it was like a destroyer charging through searchlights. It leapt straight at Gurney. The constable was flung on his back against the door; fingers bit into his throat like wire. At least he knew now that he was fighting flesh and blood. His opponent was vicious and deadly as an imp of darkness; he was all over Gurney’s unwieldy body, kicking, biting, his fingers tightening like wire. With a convulsive effort Gurney threw him off for a moment; it gave him time to blow one feeble blast on his whistle; then the imp was at him again.

  Nigel heard the whistle as he ran out of the building. He shouted, ‘Stay where you are!’ to the invisible watcher at the main entrance, and ran round the corner towards the side-door. Gurney’s assailant heard the shout. He faded away like smoke into the darkness. Nigel rushed up to Gurney:

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he gasped. ‘God! he’s a terror. Came at me like—took me all aback, see—why didn’t they tell me it was——’

  ‘You saw him?’

  ‘Yessir. Or his ghost.’

  ‘It’s no ghost. It’s Eustace Bunnett all right. Where is he?’

  ‘Made off when he heard you, sir. Looked as if he was running back into the brewery.’

  ‘Right. If he tries to get out this way again, use your stick on him.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, sir. I’ll fix the little——all right next time.’

  Nigel hurried back into the brewery and found the inspector and two constables in the bottling-room downstairs: Tyler was giving Sorn a piece of his mind. Nigel rapidly told him of the murderer’s attempt to get out by the side door.

  ‘So you were right, sir. Eustace Bunnett, eh? Well, he can’t get away now.’

  Tyler leapt into action. Lock was sent to reinforce the outside guards. The detective-constable was stationed at the main-switch, to prevent any attempt by Bunnett to plunge the building into darkness during their search. Tyler phoned his headquarters to patrol the roads outside the brewery. While he was making his dispositions, Nigel drew Gabriel Sorn aside.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I realise you put up your little performance to give the murderer a chance of getting away in the confusion. He told you he was Joe Bunnett over the phone, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it’s Eustace. I haven’t time to explain now. But this is going to get you into trouble, and the best thing you can do is to help us from now on: that is, provided your filial piety will allow it. Eustace killed Joe, by the way.’

  ‘Filial piety, my foot. I only talked like that to suck you in; but it doesn’t seem to have worked. If I can help you to get that devil Eustace, count me in.’

  ‘Right. You know where the light switches are. You’d better come with us.’

  After some argument Tyler consented to this. He now had three constables at his disposal inside the brewery. One of them was told off to keep by Sorn’s elbow in case he started any more funny stuff, and the party began their search. First the bottling-room, the head brewer’s office and the store-room. In the latter they made their first discovery. Walking over the tops of the huge one and a half cwt sacks that were stacked upright and close together, a constable noticed a small space between two full sacks, and an empty one lying there.

  ‘That’s where he’s been hiding all today,’ said Nigel. ‘Last night, when he was surprised, he must have run in here, found an empty sack, got into it, and wedged himself upright into that space. I suppose these sacks weren’t examined individually during your previous searches.’

  ‘It was Tollworthy’s job, searching this room. I’ll have something to say to him,’ replied the inspector grimly.

  Systematically they worked through the ground floor of the brewery, Gabriel Sorn leading the way and snapping on the switches. After twenty-five minutes they passed through the boiler-room and entered the cellars. Their feet trod almost noiselessly on the sandy floor. The whitewashed walls glared back at them, and danced with monstrous shadows. Nigel noticed the rusty wrought-iron gate that guarded the well in its alcove on their right. They passed it, and made their way among the hundreds of barrels that lay like drunken men after an orgy, packed together in sodden immobility. Every corner of the cellars was searched. Suddenly the searchers grew tense: a strange, wheezing, ticking sound arose from the middle of the cellar.

  ‘It’s only one of the barrels,’ said Sorn; ‘they belch every now and then.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t seem to be in here. We’d better go back,’ Tyler said.

  Nigel suddenly clicked his fingers. ‘The well,’ he said. It was hardly more than a whisper; but these long gallery-like cellars carried sound uncannily. They had scarcely begun to retrace their steps when they heard a rasping squeak. The iron gate that protected the well was being pushed open. They made a rush; but they were still thirty yards away when Eustace Bunnett stepped out from the alcove, a revolver in his hand. In a rasping, hoarse voice, like the sound of the gate hinges, he said:

  ‘Stand back! Get back, I tell you! What are you doing in my brewery? I’ll shoot the lot of you.’ Then he broke into a stream of foul language. His appearance was so unnerving that they all paused involuntarily for a few seconds. He was wearing a seaman’s jersey and trousers, and black sand-shoes. There was a stubble of hair on his chin. His cold eyes glittered madly at them, steely-blue and dangerous as the points of bullets. Worse than that, his hair and clothes were matted with cobwebs, and his mouth was horribly sunken, like the mouth of a corpse. Tyler collected himself, and said:

  ‘Now then, sir, put down that gun.’

  Nigel had hardly time to grin at the word ‘sir,’ when the inspector strode forward, Bunnett’s gun roared out, and Tyler spun round clutching his arm and dropped behind one of the barrels.

  ‘Get down, men!’ he ordered, biting his lips with pain.

  They all took cover. Tyler whispered to the constable
next to him, ‘Broken my arm, I think. Draw his fire,’ and fainted.

  The constable removed his helmet and pushed it slowly above the top of the barrel he lay behind. There was a bang, a plock, and a hiss, then a smell of beer incongruously spreading into the air. Bunnett had holed the barrel. He glared at them for a second: then rushed for the door, snapping out the switch as he went. Tripping over barrels in the pitch-darkness, it took them half a minute to reach the door and turn on the light again. The door was locked. Sorn fumbled for his master-key. As he did so, the air was shocked by a terrifying sound, a sound deafening and inhuman like some gigantic machine crying out in a nightmare. Whoo-ah! whoo-hooo-hoooo-ah! Above this whooping screech they could just hear Sorn yelling.

  ‘My God! He’s turned the cold water into the boiler! The whole place’ll go sky high! Get out, all of you!’

  He flung the door open. Two constables hoisted Tyler up and staggered with him towards the brewery entrance. Nigel ran in front, turning back the reinforcements that had been hurrying towards the sound of the shots. Only when they had poured through the yard, out of the main gate into the street, did Nigel notice that Gabriel Sorn was missing and the moaning of the boiler’s safety-valve had ceased. His mind scarcely had time to register this, when Constable Gurney appeared, the body of Eustace Bunnett slung insensible over his shoulder. Bunnett had made a dash for the side door while his late pursuers were rushing out through the main gates. But Constable Gurney was not to be caught napping this time. Emerging from his concealment he had batoned Eustace Bunnett as he bent down to unlock the door: occupied with the key, Bunnett had not time to aim his revolver before the blow fell.

  Ten minutes later, Gabriel Sorn was discovered, lying in a dead faint beside the boiler. He had raked out the furnace just in time to save all their lives.

  XV

  July 21, 8 p.m.

  Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt!

  SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet

  ‘YES, IT WAS a remark of yours that first put me on to it, Sophie.’

  ‘Mine? I’m sure I didn’t say anything——’

  ‘Oh, but you did. You did indeed. Do you remember telling me about Joe’s engaging little schoolboy tricks? Making figures out of fruit and matches, pretending his teeth had fallen into the soup?’

  ‘Of course, but——’

  ‘It was that last item which put it into my head that perhaps it was Joe and not Eustace whose body we’d found in the copper.’

  Herbert Cammison’s swarthy face betrayed a certain impatience. ‘Why not start at the beginning,’ he suggested. ‘Less melodrama and more continuity is what we want.’

  ‘Sorry. I do so enjoy making an exhibitionist of myself. Well, then, I’ll table the data in due order, starting at seven-thirty last night when I sat down upstairs to digest them.’

  ‘I thought it was beer you were digesting,’ said Sophie.

  ‘So it was. I find it conducive to thought,’ replied Nigel with dignity. ‘Well, as you mention it, I will have another glass. Better late than never. And you might as well leave the bottle beside me. Thank you.’

  Nigel drank deeply.

  ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘when all was said and done, the really odd thing about this murder remained—why was the body put into the copper at all? The obvious reason seemed, to conceal the method of murder: which pointed, of course, to an expert professional killer—Herbert, in fact.’

  ‘Oh!’ gasped Sophie, quite forgetting her knitting for a moment; ‘surely you never suspected him?’

  ‘Didn’t I just!’

  Herbert gazed at him with mild curiosity. ‘Yes, you would. Why not?’ he said dispassionately.

  ‘We aim to explore every avenue. I thought of him first as a soloist, so to speak: then, when it became evident that Joe had planned to murder Eustace, I considered Herbert as a possible accomplice—very favourably, I may say. He had the motive, the brain, the technical knowledge, and the nerve.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Herbert.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ complained Sophie. ‘First you say Eustace murdered Joe and then you say Joe planned to murder Eustace. I think you’re boozed up.’

  ‘That’s just what did happen. The wrong murder was committed. As I say, there seemed no possible reason why, if Joe’s plan had been successful—and the fragment of ring I found proved that it had gone pretty far towards success—he should have transferred the body from the refrigerator-room to the pressure-copper. Any injury he had done to Eustace in the course of stuffing him into that room could surely have been explained by Eustace’s struggles to get out. Then I suddenly remembered what you said about Joe’s teeth. Pretending your teeth have fallen into the soup implies that you have false teeth.’

  ‘But, damn it, the dentist reconstructed the plates found in the hop-back: he has no doubt they’re Eustace’s. I don’t see——’

  ‘Nor did I at first. Then it suddenly occurred to me—and I verified it by ringing up the dentist last night—that the teeth had been identified as Eustace’s, but no one had thought of comparing them with the jaws of the body. It was a scandalous error, I admit, but we none of us had any doubt that the body was Eustace. The dentist had tried the sets on the plaster-cast he’d made of Eustace’s jaws when the sets were originally constructed. He told me he had casts for Joe and Mrs Bunnett, too, which corroborated my idea that Joe had false teeth.’

  ‘Yes, of course, I see,’ Dr. Cammison said softly.

  ‘So I asked myself—supposing Eustace turned the tables on his brother and killed him? He could exchange clothes with Joe, remove Joe’s plates, throw the body into the copper and chuck his own teeth in after it. He could rely on the plates getting pretty well bashed about in the boiling process; they would be recognised by his dentist as Eustace’s teeth, but there was a good chance that they could not be reconstructed accurately enough to show that they didn’t fit the jaws of the body and so give the substitution away. But surely, I thought next, our efficient medico, Herbert Cammison, F.R.C.S., would not be misled into confusing Joe’s body with Eustace’s. Then I remembered. There was nothing but bone and hair left: and I had seen Joe’s passport, which stated that he was five foot eight—that is, within an inch of Eustace’s height; and Herbert had told me that in reconstructing the skeleton one had to allow a margin of error of two inches. The passport also said that Joe had light hair. You must remember I’d only seen a photograph of him, in which the brilliantine of his hair made it look dark; I’d assumed all along that he had dark hair. Very well: the remains in the copper were of roughly the same stature and of the same-coloured hair as Joe. Eustace, by the way, had to cut off Joe’s moustache before he dumped him in the copper. Oh, yes, he was very thorough, and cold-blooded as a fish; he needed to be.

  ‘Well, my mind running on teeth—racing on them, in fact—jumped to another tiny bit of evidence. The crumbs in Joe’s attic. Now, Eustace had got rid of his own teeth; he would not be able to eat anything but soft stuff. Again, if he put Joe into the copper, it must have been he who burgled his own house and was hiding out in Joe’s. It was interesting, therefore, that I found the remains only of bread and cake in Joe’s attic—no trace of any other kind of food. With this on my mind, I rang up Mrs Bunnett’s house and got on to the cook. She said that only bread and cake had disappeared from the larder: the Sunday joint was left. That obviously pointed to Eustace. Whoever took the food must have brought a bag of some sort to put it in. Why shouldn’t he take the joint too? Because, if it was Eustace, the joint was no use to him—he had no teeth to chew up the meat with.’

  ‘What about the crusts of the bread, then?’ asked Herbert.

  ‘Crusts become soft if you mumble them in your mouth long enough. Well, then, what with the teeth, the crumbs and the passport, a case against Eustace was beginning to build itself up. Another little point occurred to me. Lock, questioned as to the person he had surprised outside Joe Bunnett’s office in the brewe
ry on Sunday night, said first that he’d thought it must be a ghost. Now that was an odd thing for a night-watchman to say quite seriously: night-watchmen are not imaginative; they couldn’t stand their jobs if they were in the least susceptible to “ghoulies and ghosties and things that go wooomph in the night”. So mightn’t it be that subconsciously, from the brief encounter he had with this mysterious figure, he had registered the impression of Eustace Bunnett?

  ‘You see, up to midnight on Thursday last, the actions of Joe and Eustace were the actions of murderer and murderee respectively. There was no possible doubt that Joe had planned a murder and gone to commit it. Supposing, I said to myself, Joe had attacked Eustace in the brewery and Eustace had killed him instead: supposing, then, that Eustace for some reason decided the best thing was to swop identities with Joe; he must have discovered, in the course of conversation with his brother, that The Gannet was lying in Basket Cove: later he would realise that this had been planned by Joe as an alibi. Therefore if Joe was to be made out as the murderer, something must be done to explain why he had not made use of this alibi. If the police found The Gannet floating in Basket Cove, with a bewildered Bloxam on board, they would ask themselves—why didn’t Joe return and go off in the boat? It was indicated, therefore, that The Gannet should be scuppered.

  ‘We now come to the evidence of the tramp. He said that about two or three on Friday morning he heard a motor-bike going inland and saw a glow in the sky. I began to realise the times were all wrong. You see, if Joe murdered Eustace, he scheduled to get back to the cove soon after one o’clock. On the theory that Joe committed the murder successfully, one would have to presume that, by the time he returned to The Gannet, it had already accidentally caught fire and was blazing so merrily that he couldn’t put it out. But petrol-caused fires burn up fiercely and consume quickly. So, if the fire was at its height when Joe arrived at 1.10 a.m., it was unlikely that between two and three a.m. it would still be blazing so ferociously as to make the glow in the sky which the tramp saw. On the other hand, if Eustace had killed Joe, thought out a plan of action, changed clothes with the body, etc,, and ridden off on Joe’s motor-bike, he couldn’t arrive at the cove much before 2 a.m. The glow in the sky and the sound of the motor-bike, therefore, were much more consistent with Eustace’s responsibility for the whole thing.