by Otto Penzler
“And with all the inside gates and outside shutters in place,” Klein said, “who’d think to try one of the windows sandwiched between them? Or attach the right significance to it if they did.” He shook his head. “I see what you mean by simple and obvious.”
Brinkman saw, too. He saw the expression on Fran Robbins’s face: anger and fear and a congealing hatred. He saw the expression on McIntyre’s face, and on the faces of the law. All the bluff went out of him at once, and along with it whatever inner force had been holding him together; the cigarette fell out of his mouth and he sat down hard on one of the crates, like a doll with sand-stuffed legs, and covered up his own face with both hands.
They never learn, I thought. The clever ones especially—they just never learn.…
VIII.
“The way it happened with Judkins,” Eberhardt said, “was pretty much as you called it. He telephoned Brinkman at Fran Robbins’s apartment and told him he’d been thinking things over and didn’t want to go ahead with the torch job for the five hundred dollars Brinkman was paying him; he wanted another five hundred, and he wanted it right away. Brinkman tried to tell him he didn’t have that much cash available, but Judkins wouldn’t listen. Either Brinkman delivered the money immediately or not only wouldn’t he set the fire, he’d blow the whistle to the insurance company.”
“I told you Judkins wasn’t very smart,” I said.
“Yeah.” Eberhardt fired up the tobacco in his pipe. It was the following afternoon and we were sitting in a tavern on Union Street, having a companionable beer—his treat—before he headed down to the Hall of Justice for his evening tour of duty. “Anyhow, Brinkman didn’t have any choice; he agreed to meet Judkins and did, just outside the company grounds. All he had on him was fifty bucks, but he promised Judkins the rest as soon as he could get it.”
“Only Judkins wasn’t having any of that, right?”
“Right. He was half-drunk on gin, Brinkman says, and in a belligerent mood; and he’d brought a gun with him. He started waving it around, making threats, and Brinkman got scared and ran into the lot toward the building. He says he was going to call to you for help. But Judkins caught up with him; there was a struggle, and the gun went off. End of Judkins. Brinkman threw the gun—a twenty-five-caliber Browning—away later, into a trash bin a couple of blocks from there. He led us right to it. Cooperating to beat the band, which probably means he’ll cop a plea later on.”
“Uh-huh. What did he tell Robbins when he got back to her place?”
“Fed her a line about some hardcases being the ones who wanted to burn down his company for the insurance; said he had to go along with them or they’d muscle him around—that kind of thing. So would she say he was with her all evening? She went along with it; she’s not too bright either. After he called the company and talked to Klein, he told her it must have been the hardcases who’d killed Judkins. She went along with that, too, until you laid everything out in the warehouse. Now she can’t wait to testify against him.”
“Good for her.”
“One other thing, in case you’re wondering: Brinkman giving McIntyre the sack doesn’t fit into it, except as a ploy to throw off the insurance investigators even more. Would a businessman about to burn down his own company fire one employee on the day of the blaze, and promote another? Like that.”
“Cute. And when things got tough, he tried to steer the blame for Judkins’s death onto McIntyre—the old vendetta motive.”
“Some smart guy, that Brinkman.”
“Some dumb guy,” I said. “Judkins may not have been very bright, and Fran Robbins may not be either. But Brinkman’s the dumbest of the three.”
“Yeah. I wish they were all like that—all the damned criminals.” Eberhardt picked up his beer. “Here’s to crime,” he said.
“I’ll drink to that,” I said, and we did.
Late that afternoon I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge for an early dinner in Sausalito. I got a window table in one of the restaurants built out into the Bay; the weather had cleared, and it was near sunset, and from there I had a fine view of the San Francisco skyline across the water.
It was a beautiful city when you saw it like this—all the buildings shining gold in the dying sunlight, the bridges and the islands and the dazzling water and the East Bay and Marin hills surrounding it. It was only when you got down into its bowels, when you came in contact with the people—the few bad ones spoiling things for the rest—that it became something else. A jungle. A breeding ground for evil, a place of tragedy and unhappiness.
I loved that city; I had been born there and I had spent half a century there and you couldn’t have paid me enough to make me move anywhere else. But sometimes, my job being what it was, it made me angry and sad. Sometimes, in a lot of ways, it made me afraid.
The waitress had brought me a beer and I lifted my glass. Here’s to crime, I thought, but I didn’t drink to it this time.
I drank to the city instead.
And I drank to the victims.
IN A TELEPHONE CABINET
AMONG THE LEADERS of socialist thought and activity in England for many years, the husband and wife team of George Douglas Howard (1889–1959) and Margaret Isabel Postgate (1893–1980) Cole were also extremely popular mystery writers during the Golden Age of fair-play detective stories, producing more than thirty novels between 1923 and 1942. G. D. H. (generally known as Douglas) Cole also produced more than eighty books about socialism, often focused on economics. His best-known work in the field was the five-volume A History of Socialist Thought (1953). M. I. Cole was the sister of the mystery writer Raymond Postgate.
Even during the years in which they were actively engaged in socialism, Fabianism, and the Labour Party, the Coles wrote prolifically in the detective genre, which they claimed they did for recreation. The first book, The Brooklyn Murders (1923), the only one written exclusively by Douglas Cole, introduced Superintendent Henry Wilson, a dedicated Scotland Yard investigator of great integrity. His outstanding detective work once proved an ex–home secretary guilty of a crime, costing him his job when political pressure forced him to resign. He quickly became one of England’s foremost private detectives until the political climate changed and he resumed his former position. He is featured in most of the Coles’ books.
“In a Telephone Cabinet” was first published in Superintendent Wilson’s Holiday (London, Collins, 1928).
G. D. H. COLE AND M. I. COLE
I
“IT WAS AN INGENIOUS MURDER,” Wilson used to say of it on the rare occasions when he would consent to discuss his cases; “but from my point of view the chief interest was the speed at which I had to act. From the moment when I began to suspect that a careful designer had been at work, I had a conviction that if I delayed a few hours the trail would be not merely cold but non-existent. So in detaining the murderer I had to take a risk which might have proved entirely unjustified, and I had to complete the case against him within the time during which we could reasonably detain him on absolutely unproved suspicion. It was a race against time, and of course that doesn’t make for good work. One gets careless and slipshod, allows preconceived theories to mislead one and misses the essential indications.” Here one or two of his hearers smiled, wondering how often the ordinary man would have convicted Wilson of carelessness; but he went on unmoved.
“It is perfectly true. One ought not to be hurried over a case. One ought to have time to think out alternative hypotheses, and to test each one as one goes along. One ought not to have to go nap on a single series of deductions. Now, in this case that we are talking about, I fully deserved that my hypothesis should break down under me and the Department get into a very awkward row. It was a stroke of luck that it turned out all right. Of course, if it hadn’t been for Michael I couldn’t have brought it off at all.”
“You are rather good at deriving assistance from the brute creation, then,” Michael Prendergast laughed. “I should say I was about as much help as a h
ibernating tortoise. I didn’t do anything, and what you were up to I hadn’t the slightest idea.”
“I was alluding to your substantial and inescapable presence, my dear Michael,” Wilson retorted, “and to your excellent medical degree. But as a matter of fact you were standing at my elbow practically the whole time and could have followed all the steps in my conclusions.”
“So could a tortoise, no doubt,” said Prendergast, “if it was standing at the elbow of a man who was just preparing to convert it into tortoiseshell. For all I knew, you were going to order my arrest any moment.”
“You forgot, then,” Wilson said, “that I was the principal witness to your alibi, and that up to the present I have generally—though probably without warrant—considered myself a reliable witness. Also, if you will forgive my saying so, the crime was entirely beyond your powers. Your ingenuity doesn’t lie in that direction.”
At this point several of the company demanded that the two friends should cease talking in riddles and should explain what the case was which presented such remarkable features; and by dint of much cross-questioning—neither of the two having any pretensions to narrative powers—they succeeded in getting out of them the following story.
The Downshire Hill Murder (to give it its newspaper name) was discovered about half-past nine on a Sunday morning of May, 1920, one of those lovely mornings with which our climate tries to pretend that it really knows how to make a summer. Superintendent Henry Wilson of New Scotland Yard was walking along Downshire Hill, Hampstead, in company with his friend Dr. Michael Prendergast. It was long before the sensational death of Radlett, the millionaire,* which, as everyone will remember, covered England and America with placards, and drove Wilson, who had committed the unpardonable sin of detecting an ex–Home Secretary in shady courses, into the exile of private practice. He was still a C.I.D. man, liable at any moment to be called from bed and board to attend to public affairs, and it was not without some misgivings that he had obeyed the commands of his sister, with whom he was staying, to put himself for one day at least beyond reach of the telephone. However, it was a wonderful morning; and Michael Prendergast, one of his few intimate friends, who had spent the Saturday evening and night with him, had added his entreaties; and the result was that the two men, in flannels and tennis shirts, were now walking briskly down the road to the North London Station, where they intended to catch a train for Richmond.
“You’d almost think you were in the country here,” Prendergast said appreciatively, noting the trees which filled the little front gardens and the young green of the Heath which closed the end of the road. “There was an owl hooting outside my window all night.”
“They do come close to the houses here,” Wilson replied, “but I never heard of one actually nesting in the wall of a house before.”
“Nor I. Why?” For answer Wilson pointed to the ivy-clad wall of a little house about a hundred yards farther down, which was only just visible through a mass of lilac and young chestnut. “Something flew in and out of the ivy just there, between those boughs,” he said.
Prendergast stared at him. “You have sharp eyes. I was looking at the lilac, and I didn’t see anything. How do you know it was an owl, anyway, at this distance?”
“I don’t,” Wilson said. “It may not have been. I couldn’t see it at all clearly. But it was too big for any other bird. Anyway, somebody else appears to have seen it too.” They were now approaching the ivy-clad house, which, though hidden from view on the west, was quite open in front, and standing by its gate on the pavement was a man to whom it appeared to be an object of enormous interest. As the two friends passed, he looked up at them with a dubious air, which suggested that he was wondering whether to open a conversation; and Prendergast, who never could resist conversing with all and sundry, responded promptly to the suggestion.
“Have you seen the owl, too?” he asked.
“Owl!” said the man. “I ain’t seen no owl. But I’ve seen a man go in there,” he pointed to the house. “What’s he want to go in for, that’s what I want to know.”
“Perhaps it’s his house,” Prendergast suggested.
“Ho!” said the man. “Then what’s he want to go in by the window for, that’s what I want to know. Banging on the door fit to wake the dead, he was. When he sees me, he says, ‘Something wrong here,’ he says. ‘Can’t get no answer,’ and he outs with a knife and gets in at the window. And what’s he want to bang for, if it’s his house, and what’s wrong in there, that’s what I want to know.” He spat suspiciously.
In a moment his question was answered in a sufficiently dramatic manner. There was a sound of feet within the house; the front door, which was only a matter of twenty yards from the gate, opened suddenly, and a little man, pale and frightened in appearance, looked out and yelled in a voice of surprising power to come from a person of his physique, “Murder!”
All three started; and indeed the cry had sounded as if it must reach Camden Town at least. On seeing their astonished faces the man at the door looked rather confused, and coming down to the gate, said in a considerably lower tone, “Will you fetch the police, please, gentlemen? Mr. Carluke’s been murdered.”
He then closed the gate, and made as if to return to the house; but Prendergast, with a nod from Wilson, followed him up the path. “Can I do anything?” he said pleasantly. “I’m a doctor.”
“ ’Tisn’t a doctor he wants, poor fellow,” said the little man. “He’s as cold as a fish. He must have died hours ago.” He stopped with his hand on the hall door. “If you’ll fetch the police, sir, I’ll stay with him. I don’t think the house ought to be left alone. And there’s nobody there.”
“That’s all right.” Wilson, who had stopped to speak to the man at the gate, now came up to them. “I am from Scotland Yard. Here’s my card.” He produced one from his cigarette case, and Michael looked on with amusement, wondering what use he had intended to make of his official dignity at Richmond. The little man took it gingerly, as if it had been a spider, and looked with obvious distaste at the owner’s clothes. Quite clearly he thought that policemen ought to dress as policemen and not stroll about in flannel trousers.
“I’ve sent that man to the Rosslyn Hill station with a message,” Wilson went on. “They’ll be here in a few minutes. But, as you say, the place oughtn’t to be left alone. So, if you’ll show me where the body is, I can start making the preliminary investigations, and my friend here can see how he was murdered. You’re certain he was, Mr.——?”
“Barton,” said the little man. “Edward Barton. He was murdered all right, sir. Shot right through the head. His brains are all over the floor, poor fellow. This way, sir.” He seemed a trifle hurt at the doubt thrown on his diagnosis.
“Well, well, we’ll see,” Wilson said soothingly. “Where is he?”
“Telephone cabinet,” said Mr. Barton, pointing. “By the stairs on the right. That glass door. It’s his foot that’s holding it open. I haven’t touched him. I just made sure he was dead, poor fellow.”
II
It was not a pleasant sight which greeted them when Wilson pulled open the door of the little dark telephone cabinet; and it thoroughly justified Mr. Barton’s confidence in his own verdict. On the floor, crumpled up, with one foot half across the sill of the door, lay what once must have been a hale man of between fifty and sixty years of age. His body had fallen in a heap, facing the telephone, and the fingers of both hands were curved as if he had died gripping something which he had subsequently dropped. But the cause of death was plain enough; for the whole front of his face and part of his head had been pierced in a number of places, and the blood and brains which had oozed out from the wounds had covered the floor. Michael Prendergast had been through the war, and thought himself used to death; but the sight of the old man lying shattered in that gloomy, musty shambles stirred emotions in him which he believed wholly conquered, and he had to struggle with a violent feeling of nausea before he dared step across the th
reshold.
“Go carefully, Michael,” Wilson warned; and Prendergast noted with shame and annoyance that he seemed wholly unmoved by the sight. “Don’t tread in more than you can help. We’ll want all the clues we can get.” He surveyed with displeasure some unmistakable footprints in the blood that covered the floor. “You’ve been in here, Mr. Barton?”
“Of course I have,” said Mr. Barton in injured tones. “I went to see if I could do anything for him, naturally. When I found I couldn’t, I looked round to see if there was a revolver or anything anywhere. In case he shot himself, you see—in case it was suicide.”
“Turn on the light, will you?” came Prendergast’s voice from where he was bending over the body. “I can’t see anything in this coal-hole.”
“It’s broken,” said Mr. Barton. “I tried it when I came in.” He was, however, obediently reaching his hand to the switch, a porcelain one of the old pattern, when Wilson forestalled him. With a handkerchief wrapped round his hand he turned the switch backwards and forwards several times, but without result.
“It’s broken all right,” he said. “Probably the bulb’s gone. You must make shift with my torch, Michael. But be as quick as you can. It’s pretty obvious that we can’t do anything for this poor fellow now, except to find his murderer, and I want to get on with that as soon as possible.” While Prendergast finished his examination he stood still in the doorway, staring at the little room as if memorizing its contents, at the telephone, which stood unperturbed on a rather high shelf at the far end, at a shelf above containing two or three old directories, and at a baize curtain which fell from the telephone shelf to the ground.
“What’s behind that curtain, do you know?” he asked Barton.
“Boots—and some old rubbish, I think,” the latter replied. “Mr. Carluke used to shove any stuff he didn’t want there.”