by Mark Place
‘I mentioned him to the chief constable who says he remembers him quite well—that Girl Guide murder case. I was to extend a very cordial welcome to him if he is thinking of coming down here.’
‘Not he,’ I said. ‘The man is practically a limpet.’
II
It was a quarter past twelve when I rang the bell at 62, Wilbraham Crescent. Mrs Ramsay opened the door. She hardly raised her eyes to look at me. ‘What is it?’ she said.
‘Can I speak to you for a moment? I was here about ten days ago. You may not remember.’ She lifted her eyes to study me further. A faint frown appeared between her eyebrows.
‘You came—you were with the police inspector, weren’t you?’
‘That’s right, Mrs Ramsay. Can I come in?’
‘If you want to, I suppose. One doesn’t refuse to let the police in. They’d take a very poor view of it if you did.’
She led the way into the sitting-room, made a brusque gesture towards a chair and sat down opposite me. There had been a faint acerbity in her voice, but her manner now resumed a listlessness which I had not noted in it previously. I said: ‘It seems quiet here today…I suppose your boys have gone back to school?’
‘Yes. It does make a difference.’ She went on, ‘I suppose you want to ask some more questions, do you, about this last murder? The girl who was killed in the telephone box.’
‘No, not exactly that. I’m not really connected with the police, you know.’
She looked faintly surprised. ‘I thought you were Sergeant—Lamb, wasn’t it?’
‘My name is Lamb, yes, but I work in an entirely different department.’ The listlessness vanished from Mrs Ramsay’s manner. She gave me a quick, hard, direct stare.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘well, what is it?’
‘Your husband is still abroad?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s been gone rather a long time, hasn’t he, Mrs Ramsay? And gone rather a long way?’
‘What do you know about it?’
‘Well, he’s gone beyond the Iron Curtain, hasn’t he?’
She was silent for a moment or two, and then she said in a quiet, toneless voice:
‘Yes. Yes, that’s quite right.’
‘Did you know he was going?’
‘More or less.’ She paused a minute and then said, ‘He wanted me to join him there.’
‘Had he been thinking of it for some time?’
‘I suppose so. He didn’t tell me until lately.’
‘You are not in sympathy with his views?’
‘I was once, I suppose. But you must know that already…You check up pretty thoroughly on things like that, don’t you? Go back into the past, find out who was a fellow traveller, who was a party member, all that sort of thing.’
‘You might be able to give us information that would be very useful to us,’ I said.
She shook her head.
‘No. I can’t do that. I don’t mean that I won’t. You see, he never told me anything definite. I didn’t want to know. I was sick and tired of the whole thing! When Michael told me that he was leaving this country, clearing out, and going to Moscow, it didn’t really startle me. I had to decide then, what I wanted to do.’
‘And you decided you were not sufficiently in sympathy with your husband’s aims?’
‘No, I wouldn’t put it like that at all! My view is entirely personal. I believe it always is with women in the end, unless of course one is a fanatic. And then women can be very fanatical, but I wasn’t. I’ve never been anything more than mildly left-wing.’
‘Was your husband mixed up in the Larkin business?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose he might have been. He never told me anything or spoke to me about it.’
She looked at me suddenly with more animation.
‘We’d better get it quite clear, Mr Lamb. Or Mr Wolf in Lamb’s clothing, or whatever you are. I loved my husband, I might have been fond enough of him to go with him to Moscow, whether I agreed with what his politics were or not. He wanted me to bring the boys. I didn’t want to bring the boys! It was as simple as that. And so I decided I’d have to stay with them. Whether I shall ever see Michael again or not I don’t know. He’s got to choose his way of life and I’ve got to choose mine, but I did know one thing quite definitely. After he talked about it to me. I wanted the boys brought up here in their own country. They’re English. I want them to be brought up as ordinary English boys.’
‘I see.’
‘And that I think is all,’ said Mrs Ramsay, as she got up.
There was now a sudden decision in her manner.
‘It must have been a hard choice,’ I said gently. ‘I’m very sorry for you.’
I was, too. Perhaps the real sympathy in my voice got through to her. She smiled very slightly.
‘Perhaps you really are…I suppose in your job you have to try and get more or less under people’s skins, know what they’re feeling and thinking. It’s been rather a knockout blow for me, but I’m over the worst of it…I’ve got to make plans now, what to do, where to go, whether to stay here or go somewhere else. I shall have to get a job. I used to do secretarial work once. Probably I’ll take a refresher course in shorthand and typing.’
‘Well, don’t go and work for the Cavendish Bureau,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘Girls who are employed there seem to have rather unfortunate things happen to them.’
‘If you think I know anything at all about that, you’re wrong. I don’t.’
I wished her luck and went. I hadn’t learnt anything from her. I hadn’t really thought I should. But one has to tidy up the loose ends.
III
Going out of the gate I almost cannoned into Mrs McNaughton. She was carrying a shopping-bag and seemed very wobbly on her feet.
‘Let me,’ I said and took it from her. She was inclined to clutch it from me at first, then she leaned her head forward, peering at me, and relaxed her grip.
‘You’re the young man from the police,’ she said. ‘I didn’t recognize you at first.’
I carried the shopping-bag to her front door and she teetered beside me. The shopping-bag was unexpectedly heavy. I wondered what was in it. Pounds of potatoes?
‘Don’t ring,’ she said. ‘The door isn’t locked.’
Nobody’s door seemed ever to be locked in Wilbraham Crescent.
‘And how are you getting on with things?’ she asked chattily. ‘He seems to have married very much below him.’
I didn’t know what she was talking about.
‘Who did—I’ve been away,’ I explained.
‘Oh, I see. Shadowing someone, I suppose. I meant that Mrs Rival. I went to the inquest. Such a common -looking woman. I must say she didn’t seem much upset by her husband’s death.’
‘She hadn’t see him for fifteen years,’ I explained.
‘Angus and I have been married for twenty years.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a long time. And so much gardening now that he isn’t at the university…It makes it difficult to know what to do with oneself.’
At that moment, Mr McNaughton, spade in hand, came round the corner of the house.
‘Oh, you’re back, my dear. Let me take the things—’
‘Just put it in the kitchen,’ said Mrs McNaughton to me swiftly—her elbow nudged me. ‘Just the Cornflakes and the eggs and a melon,’ she said to her husband, smiling brightly.
I deposited the bag on the kitchen table. It clinked.
Cornflakes, my foot! I let my spy’s instincts take over. Under a camouflage of sheet gelatine were three bottles of whisky. I understood why Mrs McNaughton was sometimes so bright and garrulous and why she was occasionally a little unsteady on her feet. And possibly why McNaughton had resigned his Chair. It was a morning for neighbours. I met Mr Bland as I was going along the crescent towards Albany Road. Mr Bland seemed in very good form. He recognized me at once. ‘How are you? How’s crime? Got your dead body identified, I see. Seems to have
treated that wife of his rather badly. By the way, excuse me, you’re not one of the locals, are you?’
I said evasively I had come down from London.
‘So the Yard was interested, was it?’
‘Well—’ I drew the word out in a noncommittal way.
‘I understand. Mustn’t tell tales out of school. You weren’t at the inquest, though.’
I said I had been abroad.
‘So have I, my boy. So have I!’ He winked at me.
‘Gay Paree?’ I asked, winking back.
‘Wish it had been. No, only a day trip to Boulogne.’
He dug me in the side with his elbow (quite like Mrs McNaughton!).
‘Didn’t take the wife. Teamed up with a very nice little bit. Blonde. Quite a hot number.’
‘Business trip?’ I said. We both laughed like men of the world.
He went on towards No. 61 and I walked on towards Albany Road. I was dissatisfied with myself. As Poirot had said, there should have been more to be got out of the neighbours. It was positively unnatural that nobody should have seen anything! Perhaps Hardcastle had asked the wrong questions. But could I think of any better ones? As I turned into Albany Road I made a mental list of questions. It went something like this:
Mr Curry (Castleton) had been doped—When?
ditto had been killed—Where?
Mr Curry (Castleton) had been taken to No. 19 —How?
Somebody must have seen something!—Who? ditto—What?
I turned to the left again. Now I was walking along Wilbraham Crescent just as I had walked on September 9th. Should I call on Miss Pebmarsh? Ring the bell and say—well, what should I say?
Call on Miss Waterhouse? But what on earth could I say to her? Mrs Hemming perhaps? It wouldn’t much matter what one said to Mrs Hemming. She wouldn’t be listening, and what she said, however haphazard and irrelevant, might lead to something. I walked along, mentally noting the numbers as I had before. Had the late Mr Curry come along here, also noting numbers, until he came to the number he meant to visit? Wilbraham Crescent had never looked primmer. I almost found myself exclaiming in Victorian fashion, ‘Oh! if these stones could speak!’ It was a favourite quotation in those days, so it seemed. But stones don’t speak, no more do bricks and mortar, nor even plaster nor stucco. Wilbraham Crescent remained silently itself. Old-fashioned, aloof, rather shabby, and not given to conversation. Disapproving, I was sure, of itinerant prowlers who didn’t even know what they were looking for.
There were few people about, a couple of boys on bicycles passed me, two women with shopping-bags. The houses themselves might have been embalmed like mummies for all the signs of life there were in them. I knew why that was. It was already, or close upon, the sacred hour of one, an hour sanctified by English traditions to the consuming of a midday meal. In one or two houses I could see through the uncurtained windows a group of one or two people round a dining table, but even that was exceedingly rare. Either the windows were discreetly screened with nylon netting, as opposed to the once popular Nottingham lace, or—which was far more probable—anyone who was at home was eating in the ‘modern’ kitchen, according to the custom of the 1960’s.
It was, I reflected, a perfect hour of day for a murder. Had the murderer thought of that, I wondered? Was it part of the murderer’s plan? I came at last to No. 19. Like so many other moronic members of the populace I stood and stared. There was, by now, no other human being in sight. ‘No neighbours,’ I said sadly, ‘no intelligent onlookers.’
I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. I had been wrong. There was a neighbour here, all right, a very useful neighbour if the neighbour had only been able to speak. I had been leaning against the post of No. 20, and the same large orange cat I had seen before was sitting on the gate post. I stopped and exchanged a few words with him, first detaching his playful claw from my shoulder. ‘If cats could speak,’ I offered him as a conversational opening.
The orange cat opened his mouth, gave a loud melodious miaow. ‘I know you can,’ I said. ‘I know you can speak just as well as I can. But you’re not speaking my language. Were you sitting here that day? Did you see who went into that house or came out of it? Do you know all about what happened? I wouldn’t put it past you, puss.’
The cat took my remark in poor part. He turned his back on me and began to switch his tail. ‘I’m sorry, your Majesty,’ I said.
He gave me a cold look over his shoulder and started industriously to wash himself. Neighbours, I reflected bitterly! There was no doubt about it, neighbours were in short supply in Wilbraham Crescent. What I wanted—what Hardcastle wanted—was some nice gossipy, prying, peering old lady with time hanging heavy on her hands. Always hoping to look out and see something scandalous. The trouble is that that kind of old lady seems to have died out nowadays. They are all sitting grouped together in Old Ladies’ Homes with every comfort for the aged, or crowding up hospitals where beds are needed urgently for the really sick. The lame and the halt and the old didn’t live in their own houses any more, attended by a faithful domestic or by some half-witted poor relation glad of a good home. It was a serious setback to criminal investigation.
I looked across the road. Why couldn’t there be any neighbours there? Why couldn’t there be a neat row of houses facing me instead of that great, inhuman-looking concrete block. A kind of human beehive, no doubt, tenanted by worker bees who were out all day and only came back in the evening to wash their smalls or make up their faces and go out to meet their young men. By contrast with the inhumanity of that block of flats I began almost to have a kindly feeling for the faded Victorian gentility of Wilbraham Crescent. My eye was caught by a flash of light somewhere half-way up the building. It puzzled me. I stared up. Yes, there it came again. An open window and someone looking through it. A face slightly obliterated by something that was being held up to it. The flash of light came again. I dropped a hand into my pocket. I keep a good many things in my pockets, things that may be useful. You’d be surprised at what is useful sometimes. A little adhesive tape. A few quite innocent-looking instruments which are quite capable of opening most locked doors, a tin of grey powder labelled something which it isn’t and an insufflator to use with it, and one or two other little gadgets which most people wouldn’t recognize for what they are.
Amongst other things I had a pocket bird watcher. Not a high-powered one but just good enough to be useful. I took this out and raised it to my eye. There was a child at the window. I could see a long plait of hair lying over one shoulder. She had a pair of small opera glasses and she was studying me with what might have been flattering attention. As there was nothing else for her to look at, however, it might not be as flattering as it seemed. At that moment, however, there was another midday distraction in Wilbraham Crescent. A very old Rolls-Royce came with dignity along the road driven by a very elderly chauffeur. He looked dignified but rather disgusted with life. He passed me with the solemnity of a whole procession of cars. My child observer, I noticed, was now training her opera glasses on him. I stood there, thinking.
It is always my belief that if you wait long enough, you’re bound to have some stroke of luck. Something that you can’t count upon and that you would never have thought of, but which just happens . Was it possible that this might be mine? Looking up again at the big square block, I noted carefully the position of the particular window I was interested in, counting from it to each end and up from the ground. Third floor. Then I walked along the street till I came to the entrance to the block of flats. It had a wide carriage-drive sweeping round the block with neatly spaced flower-beds at strategic positions in the grass.
It’s always well, I find, to go through all the motions, so I stepped off the carriage-drive towards the block, looked up over my head as though startled, bent down to the grass, pretended to hunt about and finally straightened up, apparently transferring something from my hand to my pocket. Then I walked round the block until I came to the entrance. At most times of the da
y I should think there was a porter here, but between the sacred hour of one and two the entrance hall was empty. There was a bell with a large sign above it, saying PORTER, but I did not ring it. There was an automatic lift and I went to it and pressed a button for the third floor. After that I had to check things pretty carefully.
It looks simple enough from the outside to place one particular room, but the inside of a building is confusing. However, I’ve had a good deal of practice at that sort of thing in my time, and I was fairly sure that I’d got the right door. The number on it, for better or worse, was No. 77. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘sevens are lucky. Here goes.’ I pressed the bell and stood back to await events.
Chapter 25
Colin Lamb’s Narrative
I had to wait just a minute or two, then the door opened. A big blonde Nordic girl with a flushed face and wearing gay-coloured clothing looked at me inquiringly. Her hands had been hastily wiped but there were traces of flour on them and there was a slight smear of flour on her nose so it was easy for me to guess what she had been doing.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘but you have a little girl here, I think. She dropped something out of the window.’ She smiled at me encouragingly. The English language was not as yet her strong point.
‘I am sorry—what you say?’
‘A child here—a little girl.’
‘Yes, yes.’ She nodded.
‘Dropped something—out of the window.’
Here I did a little gesticulation. ‘I picked it up and brought it here.’ I held out an open hand. In it was a silver fruit knife. She looked at it without recognition. ‘I do not think—I have not seen…’
‘You’re busy cooking,’ I said sympathetically.
‘Yes, yes, I cook. That is so.’ She nodded vigorously.
‘I don’t want to disturb you,’ I said. ‘If you let me just take it to her.’
‘Excuse?’
My meaning seemed to come to her. She led the way across the hall and opened a door. It led into a pleasant sitting-room. By the window a couch had been drawn up and on it there was a child of about nine or ten years old, with a leg done up in plaster.