The Crack In the Teacup

by Michael Gilbert

  “I tried to put him off. I said I didn’t know when you’d be back. He said, the later the better as far as he was concerned, so we made it half-past five.”

  “I’d better start reading the papers, then. Damn.”

  This was the telephone. It was Ambrose, incoherent with gratitude.

  “That was a very good turn your London colleague did me,” he said. “There’s been some exceedingly dirty work going on about our paper supplies, no doubt about it. When we offered them payment for last week’s – the bank were prepared to back us – they started making fresh difficulties. So I got straight on to your Ballard people – gave them the name of the director your friend knew – and arranged for all our future supplies to come from them. At slightly better terms than our existing ones with the East Kent Mills, too!”

  “Will you be able to reprint this week’s issue?”

  “Not in time for that, alas. But next week’s issue is guaranteed. I’m starting on the editorial now. It’s going to be a killer, I can tell you.”

  “Splendid,” said Anthony. “Splendid.” He tried to sound enthusiastic, but it was an effort. He had been gripped by an unexpected feeling of frustration.

  “Do you know, you actually gnashed your teeth then?” said Ann.

  “If I did,” said Anthony, “it expressed my feelings very accurately. Whenever I think I’m making progress, I butt into some invisible obstacle.”

  “Like a lobster in a lobster pot.”

  “I can think of more elegant similes, but that is roughly the position. There’s no need for you to hang about. Southern will probably keep me talking for hours. I’ll get Bowler to lock up when we go.”

  Ann was smiling to herself as she went downstairs. No talk now, she noticed, of giving up the fight. She was certain that something had happened to Anthony on his second visit to London. It had been at the back of his mind all the time that he had been out with her that evening. (Well, no. That wasn’t strictly accurate. There had been a period at the end when his mind had been exclusively on other things.) But something had certainly been worrying him. He would tell her about it sooner or later.

  It was nearly six o’clock when Raymond Southern arrived.

  He said, “I’m glad you don’t mind working late. I enjoy it. Now, what have you been able to find out for me?”

  Conscious that the extent of his researches was a quick canter through the papers in the past forty-five minutes, Anthony embarked on his exposition. Fortunately the points which interested Southern most were tax points, and tax was one of Anthony’s specialities.

  Raymond Southern’s views on tax were simple. Tax was tribute; it was Danegeld. You paid it under duress, and solely because the extractors had the power to extract it. It was no different, in kind, from the protection money which a club proprietor paid to an organised gang of bullies who had it in their power to make it hot for him if he didn’t.

  “We’ve got a new Inspector here,” he said. “He’s a nasty little crook, with a Hitler moustache and glasses. He had the nerve to put up for the Splash Point Club.”

  “I don’t suppose he got in?”

  “You’re right, he didn’t. When I’d finished canvassing, the ballot box was hardly big enough to hold the black balls. Now—let’s have another look at that case you quoted. It looks as if they may have lowered their guard there a bit, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s a loophole,” said Anthony. “The trouble is that the next Finance Act will probably block it up and then you’ll be worse off than before.”

  “Exactly. When they get beaten, they squeal to the umpire to alter the rules. I think we might give it a run, though—it’s going to turn on some rather nice timing. Suppose we altered the company’s accounting date—”

  They discussed the timing, in detail, and Anthony discovered, when he next looked at his watch, that it was half-past eight. He suddenly realised that he was very hungry.

  “Come and have a bite with me,” said Southern. “I owe it to you for keeping you here so late. There’s a little restaurant behind my office – it hasn’t been open long enough to get spoilt – they grill quite a decent steak.”

  Over dinner Raymond Southern refused to talk business. He talked about cricket, chess, roses and, with the coffee, about local politics.

  “I’ve thought a lot about resigning,” he said. “I wouldn’t have stood this time, if it hadn’t looked like being a close fight with the Radicals. I couldn’t back down and present them with a walk-over, although I believe Masters is quite a good chap as Reds go. I shan’t stand again, though. Once we’ve got this development scheme through—of course, I forgot, you’re on the other side, aren’t you?”

  “Well—”

  “No need to be embarrassed about it. Someone’s got to put both sides of every case. I’d sooner you were on the other side than some smart lawyer from London who didn’t know any of the people concerned.”

  “Speaking as a lawyer,” said Anthony, “it’d be a damn sight easier if one didn’t know most of the people concerned.”

  “Something in that,” agreed Southern and signalled for the wine waiter.

  Over the brandy he reverted to local politics. “Your father would have made an excellent Town Clerk,” he said. “He could have had the job, for the asking, in 1945—and again when Preston left in the late fifties, and Sudderby took it on.’

  Anthony said, “He never told me that.”

  “I don’t suppose he did,” said Southern, with a grin. “Since you were the reason he turned it down.”

  “I was—”

  “If he’d left the firm old mother Pincott wouldn’t have been able to keep it going for three months. Incidentally, it looks as though another vacancy’s coming up.”

  For a moment Anthony thought he was talking about the firm. Then he looked up sharply, “You mean Sudderby’s retiring.”

  “He’s retired.”

  “When?”

  “Macintyre told me this afternoon.”

  “Why on earth did he do it? It isn’t as if he was well off. He—” Anthony realised that he had been on the point of committing a breach of professional confidence, and bit the sentence off.

  Southern was still smiling.

  “If you were going to tell me,” he said, “that James Sudderby was hard up for a bit of ready cash, I knew it. He borrowed £200 from me this afternoon.”

  “Did he say what he wanted it for?”

  “He told me a long story. I won’t bore you with it, because I didn’t believe a word of it. James is a rotten liar. The truth is, he’s got himself into some sort of tangle.”

  “Corporation funds?”

  “Could be. I don’t believe he’s a crook, though. I think it’s something quite silly. And I’m quite sure he’ll pay me back. Otherwise I shouldn’t have lent it to him. I’m a businessman, you know.”

  “Oh, quite,” said Anthony.

  When they parted Anthony set off on foot. The breeze, as it sometimes did, had turned at dusk, and brought in a drizzle of fine sea rain. It wouldn’t last long. By midnight the sky would be clear again. Anthony turned up his coat collar and walked steadily. He was heading for Boscombe Avenue, where Sudderby’s little bachelor house stood in its pocket-handkerchief of neat garden.

  He was far from clear what he was going to say to the Town Clerk. Two thoughts were jostling in his mind. The first was the simple thought that Sudderby was in trouble, and that he might be able to help him. The second was more complicated. Sudderby, in the days before his town-clerk-ship, when he was in private practice with Mentmore, had helped to form the Carlmont Property Company. This didn’t necessarily mean that he had any interest in it. Solicitors often formed companies for clients and handed them over lock stock and barrel once they had been formed.

  But it did mean that Sudderby must know who was behind the company. And that knowledge had suddenly become very valuable.

  At the corner of Boscombe Avenue he stopped to clean the misty rain off his
glasses. Sudderby’s house was the third one along and there was a street lamp in front of it. He was on the point of moving when he checked himself. Someone was coming down Sudderby’s front path, and coming fast. The gate swung open and Anthony saw that it was a boy. He saw him quite clearly, under the light of the lamp. He had fair, crinkly hair, eyes with a slight upward slant to them which gave the face an oriental look, a short, almost snub nose and a wide mouth. Normally it would have been an attractive face, but at that moment it was distorted with an ugly look, half-panic and half-calculation.

  The gate slammed, the boy turned on his heel and scudded away along the pavement. Anthony hesitated for a moment, then opened the gate, walked up the short path and pressed the bell-push.

  The Westminster chimes died into thick silence.

  He stepped back and looked up at the house. The ground floor was in darkness. Upstairs, it was not so easy to see. The windows had leaded panes and the curtains were drawn. He thought there was a glimmer of light from what he guessed would be the main bedroom.

  The water was trickling from his hair down the back of his collar, and his glasses were getting misted up again.

  He knew the lay-out. The flagged path led round to the kitchen door at the back. He followed it. The pantry window beside the back door was open, but was blocked with a sheet of thick gauze mesh. The kitchen window itself was shut. Anthony turned the handle of the back door and found that it was unlocked.

  He went in, located the light switch, and clicked it on.

  Someone had been eating a meal at the kitchen table and had abandoned it in a hurry. There was a thick slab of fried bread, on which the grease was whitening as it grew cold, an uneaten rasher of bacon, most of a fried egg and a cup half-full of coffee. None of this looked like Sudderby who was a good cook and a fastidious eater. This was a meal the boy had prepared for himself and had abandoned half-eaten.

  Anthony opened the door and tip-toed out into the hall. The faint light from the fan over the hall door showed all the familiar objects. The pipe full of walking sticks and umbrellas, the hat-stand, the round glass of the barometer.

  He said, his voice sounding curiously husky, “Mr. Sudderby. Is anyone home?” When he said it again, louder, he thought he heard a faint moan. He pressed down the switch, and the light jumped out. There was nothing to be seen. The noise had come from somewhere above him. He ran upstairs, tapped on the door of the room immediately ahead of him, heard another moan and went in.

  The only light came from a red-shaded bedside lamp. James Sudderby was lying, fully-dressed on his bed. For a moment Anthony hardly recognised him. His face was paper-white, drained of all blood. There were livid patches under his eyes, his jaw had dropped open. There was spittle on his beard and he was breathing in heavy, laboured gasps.

  An empty bottle stood on the table beside a nearly empty glass. There was a thick white sediment at the bottom of the glass.

  Anthony ran out of the room, and down the stairs. The telephone was in the hall.

  He found Dr. Rogers in.

  “I’ll be there as quick as I can,” he said.

  “Anything I ought to do?”

  “Yes—ring this number and get hold of an ambulance.”

  Anthony did so. The name of Dr. Rogers seemed enough for the dispatcher, who said the ambulance would be with him right away.

  Anthony went back upstairs.

  Sudderby was lying as he had left him, but there was a difference. His eyes, which had been shut, were now open. There seemed to be some message behind them.

  Anthony leaned forward. It was difficult to say if it was speech or simply a change in the tortured breathing.

  He thought he heard the word “paper”. He could easily have imagined it.

  He heard a car draw up and ran down to let in Dr. Rogers. The doctor switched on the overhead light, took one look at Sudderby, and said, “See if you can find me a basin. And two large towels.” Whilst Anthony was looking for these the ambulance arrived. One man, who carried a black leather satchel, went upstairs. The driver stopped in the hall.

  Anthony said, “I suppose I ought to have telephoned the police, too.”

  “Dispatcher will have done that,” said the driver. “If this is going to take a bit of time, what do you say we make ourselves a pot of tea, eh?”

  “The kitchen’s back there,” said Anthony. Then a thought struck him. “Only I don’t think we ought to touch anything in it until the police get here.”

  A look of interest came into the driver’s eyes. “One of those cases, is it? Well, here they are, anyway.”

  It was Inspector Knox. He said “Hullo” to Anthony, and went straight upstairs to have a word with the doctor. It was a quarter-ofan-hour before he came down again.

  “How’s it going?” said Anthony.

  “They’re doing what they can,” said the Inspector. “I’d like to know just how you come into this. Suppose we go in here.” He opened the door of the room which Sudderby called his den, followed Anthony in and shut the door, leaving the disappointed driver standing in the hall examining the barometer.

  Anthony told the Inspector what he knew.

  “This boy – where’d he come from?”

  “From round the back of the house, almost certainly.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “No, but the front door was shut, and if he’d come out that way I’d have heard him slam it. Besides, he’d been in the kitchen, eating a meal – one he’d cooked for himself, I’d judge. Come and have a look.”

  They walked along together.

  “You don’t think this was something Mr. Sudderby was cooking?”

  “I’m quite sure it wasn’t,” said Anthony. “Sudderby wouldn’t eat a hunk of fatty fried bread. This was a meal the boy was cooking for himself and he was disturbed in the middle of it.”

  “By what, would you suggest?”

  “It’s not difficult to guess. He heard some noise, went up, and saw—what I saw.”

  “And ran away? Without telling anyone? That wasn’t very nice, was it?”

  “He was in a blind panic—I say.”

  “Yes, Mr. Brydon.”

  “I wonder—you know those boys up at Caesar’s Camp. They were protégés of Sudderby’s. Do you think—he might have been one of them?”

  “It’s a possibility,” said the Inspector. “It’ll need checking.”

  “For God’s sake,” said Anthony. “It’s not checking it needs. It needs a police car up there at once.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You didn’t see that boy’s face. I did. As soon as he gets there, the whole lot’ll up-stick as fast as they can.”

  The Inspector sat, swinging one leg over the other. At last he heaved himself to his feet with a sigh. “We’ll take a chance on it,” he said. He went out, and Anthony heard him telephoning and giving orders. When he had finished he didn’t come back into the room, but Anthony heard his feet clumping upstairs and along the passage. There was a murmur of voices and a door shut.

  Anthony sat on. There was a great load of weariness and reaction and sorrow on him, a weight which pressed on his shoulders and bowed his head.

  Hours later, so it seemed, he woke with a start. People were coming downstairs, slowly. They were carrying something. The shuffling feet passed along the hallway, the front door opened, there was a pause and the ambulance started up. A single pair of footsteps returned and Dr. Rogers came into the kitchen.

  Anthony said, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Ten minutes ago,” said Dr. Rogers. His voice was professionally unmoved. “There was very little chance of saving him. He’d taken about sixty aspirin tablets, I should say.”

  He took a quick look at Anthony, and added, “You did the best you could by calling us at once. Incidentally, you look as if you could do with a night’s rest. I’ll run you home.”

  “I’d rather walk,” said Anthony.

  When he got outside he found that
he had been right about the weather. The wind had driven the last cloud away, and the sky was a black dome, freckled with a million stars.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Sunshine Boys Depart

  Anthony was in Dr. Rogers’ surgery, and the doctor had strapped an instrument to his arm to test his blood pressure. The pain in his arm was excruciating. “It’s the highest blood pressure this instrument has ever registered,” said Dr. Rogers, his face grave. “Can you feel a throbbing in your head?” Anthony nodded weakly. He could feel a distinct throbbing in his head. It was the telephone on the table beside him. When he tried to reach for it he found that he had been lying with his right arm doubled under him and had lost all power in it. He fumbled for the receiver with his left hand and succeeded in knocking it off the hook. Whilst he was picking it up an impatient voice started addressing him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was asleep.” “Sorry about that, sir,” said Inspector Knox, with the total lack of sympathy of a man who has himself been up all night. “How quickly do you think you could get round here?”

  “I’d like to shave, and have some breakfast—unless it’s too urgent for that.”

  “It’s nine o’clock now. Could you be here by ten?”

  “I could try,” said Anthony. “What’s up?”

  “Identification parade. And we’ve got a lot of people waiting.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Anthony. “I’ll skip my breakfast, but I insist on shaving.”

  At the police station he was conducted into a waiting-room by Sergeant Appleby, a rosy-cheeked little man with twinkling blue eyes.

  “We’ve got ’em lined up in the canteen,” he said. “Inspector’s with them. You know the drill, I expect.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “You go right down the line, and take a careful look at ’em all, without saying anything. Then, supposing you’ve spotted anyone you recognise, you come back, and point him out, and say, ‘That’s the one.’ Only look at ’em all first. If you don’t, the lawyer who’s defending usually makes something out of it. Ready?”

  They marched in. There were a dozen boys lined up against the wall, some of them had clearly been roped in from the streets and were enjoying it. Some of them looked serious, and Anthony guessed that they were the Sunshine Boys. He recognised his boy as soon as he came into the room, but dutifully paraded down the whole line before coming back and pointing.