Dead to the World

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘Now this is what driving must have been like round about the turn of the century,’ Ruth said. ‘Peaceful, smooth …’

  ‘Please be quiet, Ruth. I’m thinking.’

  Ruth’s mischievous grin faded. ‘“They forgot the ring”?’

  ‘“They forgot the ring”. Whose ring? Vance Scranton’s obviously. It was the only thing that was missing from the body. A simple signet ring, of no great value, apparently. Yet somebody stole it … And yet if they stole it, they didn’t forget it, did they?’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense. Perhaps Curly’s just hanging a red herring in front of our noses.’

  Holt frowned. ‘Do you really think that?’

  Ruth did not reply immediately. Then at last she said, ‘No. As a matter of fact, I think he was telling the truth. That incident up on the cliff top shook him to the core; and when a person gets scared – really scared – they don’t pretend. I think he meant what he said.’

  ‘That was my impression too. But it still doesn’t make sense.’

  Holt said no more but continued to drive northwards at the same leisurely speed. Then, without warning, an exclamation sprang from his lips and he slid through a rapid change of gears until the Mustang was showing its taillights to everything else on the road.

  Ruth sat upright, on the alert at once. ‘Something has bitten you?’ she asked eagerly.

  ‘Something has! Something so fantastic that …’

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘… I wonder … It’s impossible!… Or is it?’

  ‘Fascinating conversation,’ Ruth said dryly, almost bursting with curiosity but quite determined not to betray it. ‘No doubt you’ll tell me, in your own good time …’

  Miraculously they avoided all speed traps and drew up outside Holt’s yellow front door as Big Ben announced that it was eight o’clock. Without stopping to garage the car he thrust the key into the lock and bounded up the stairs to the studio.

  A quick search through a notebook revealed Inspector Hyde’s private number, and just as he stretched out his hand towards the telephone it startled him by ringing.

  The conversation which followed was brief and he had hung up by the time Ruth strolled in with the Olympus Pen F in her hand. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Scranton from the Savoy. He says he’s been trying to get me all afternoon. Sounds pretty het-up about something. He wants me to go round right away.’

  ‘Has someone sent him another issue of the New Feature?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, not this time. Come on, let’s go.’

  Ruth indicated the camera she was holding. ‘What about this film?’

  ‘We’ll do that when we get back.’

  In the Mustang they threaded their way through light evening traffic and Ruth asked, ‘Is this likely to affect your brilliant new theory, Philip?’

  ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, it may even confirm it,’ was the enigmatic reply.

  Ruth had not long to wait before she learnt the answer. When they arrived at the Savoy Robert Scranton was pacing up and down near the Reception Desk. He hurried them to the lift.

  ‘I’ll let Mother tell you in her own words,’ he said as they travelled smoothly upwards. ‘I must warn you, though, she’s kinda hysterical right now. I don’t ever remember her being so worked up! I’d have sent for a doc, but she insisted on seeing you first.’

  Holt nodded, making no comment.

  They crossed soft carpets to the door of Scranton’s suite. He took out his key and let them in.

  Mrs Scranton lay on a couch in front of an electric fire. She looked frailer than ever, and deep shock was evident in her features. Yet, also, in her eyes there was something resembling elation; it frightened Ruth by its unexpectedness.

  ‘Please forgive me if I don’t get up,’ Mrs Scranton said. ‘I have the most fantastic thing to tell you – I guess it’s shaken me up.’

  ‘I think I know what you’re going to tell me,’ Holt said calmly. Robert Scranton was at his wife’s side, holding her hand. They both stared in silent astonishment, and Holt continued, ‘Have you, by any chance, heard from or seen your son recently, Mrs Scranton?’

  Ruth let out a tiny gasp as Mrs Scranton nodded slowly and answered in little more than a whisper, ‘Yes. I saw Vance this morning. How did you know?’

  Chapter Five

  In his office at Scotland Yard Inspector Hyde waved Philip Holt to the visitor’s chair. ‘You’re looking very fit, despite yesterday’s excitement,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. I’ve just been taking my Sunday morning constitutional. I’ve been to the Savoy, and then walked all the way here – that’s quite a step!’

  ‘What’s happened – has the Mustang broken down?’

  ‘No, no – she’s in great shape!’

  ‘Now don’t tell me you’re between cars again!’ the Inspector smiled, recalling Holt’s weakness for changing his personal transport whenever a new design took his fancy.

  Holt laughed. ‘At the moment I’m absolutely faithful to the Mustang! – Well, let’s say just an occasional flirtatious glance at the new Coronado. It’s got a fascinating front-wheel—’

  ‘Quite so. But you didn’t drag me here on a Sunday morning in order to talk cars. How are the Scrantons this morning?’

  ‘I don’t know. You see, I didn’t go into the Savoy itself. I stayed outside and checked up on Mrs Scranton’s story.’

  Hyde leaned forward sharply. ‘Wait a moment – don’t go too fast for this poor old brainbox! Let’s get this clear. When you phoned me at home last night and told me she’d seen Vance you seemed perfectly prepared to accept her story. In fact, you said it fitted in with a new theory of your own – a theory which was prompted by Curly’s cryptic reference to a ring. Am I right so far?’

  ‘Yes, that’s perfectly correct.’

  ‘Robert Scranton may have thought his wife was having hallucinations, but you were inclined to believe her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then what’s all this about “checking up” on her story. Have you had doubts about it since?’

  ‘I wanted to check up on it because there was just one aspect of the story that didn’t fit.’

  ‘Go on, Holt.’

  Holt took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go over it, step by step … Yesterday morning, at about eleven o’clock, the Scrantons were just going out of the hotel, through the swing doors of the Strand exit, when Robert Scranton remembered something and went back. His wife waited for him outside. She happened to glance up, and there – about fifty yards away on the street corner – stood her son Vance. Or so she says.’

  ‘On which corner? By the bank or the men’s outfitters?’

  ‘On the bank corner. There are traffic lights there; her son was leaning against them, gazing towards the Savoy and twiddling his hat round and round on one finger. Apparently that was a typical mannerism of his and it convinced Mrs Scranton that she wasn’t having hallucinations. But even so, it took her a few seconds to get over the shock, as you can imagine.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I suppose she didn’t attempt to call out to him; the mere fact of seeing him there probably made her speechless.’

  ‘That in itself would be perfectly understandable – but in any case one wouldn’t call out to someone standing fifty yards away; twenty – even thirty, at a pinch – but not fifty, in a crowded London street. It all happened pretty quickly, according to Mrs Scranton, and by the time she’d recovered her senses and her husband had come out of the hotel the boy had gone. Scranton himself says he thought his wife had gone “mental”, but just to humour her he ran out into the Strand and searched in both directions. There was no sign of Vance. Whoever it was had been swallowed up by the crowd.’

  Holt paused for a moment, allowing time for Hyde to take in the details so far, then he went on, ‘If we assume that Vance is alive, then the question is, why didn’t he acknowledge his mother? She saw him clearly enough, and she says he was looking straight at her. Why di
dn’t he greet her?’

  ‘It would be rather illuminating to know the answer to that one, certainly.’

  ‘I think I have it!’ Holt replied. ‘I stood at the traffic lights on that particular corner this morning, just after eleven o’clock. I looked across at the Savoy and had a perfectly clear view of the commissionaire at the swing doors. I must admit I was completely baffled by the problem. Then, quite suddenly, the sun came out – from behind the hotel. It was shining right in my eyes and I couldn’t see a thing! I spoke to the commissionaire afterwards and he said he’d noticed me standing there on the corner, the sun had picked me out like a floodlight. Then I asked him what sort of day it had been in Town yesterday – Ruth and I were driving down to the coast, you remember. He said it had been a lovely autumn day with brilliant sunshine.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, it was,’ Hyde confirmed. For a moment or two he occupied himself with his pipe, then he summed up briefly. ‘So let’s say that young Scranton, for reasons of his own, came and gazed at the hotel where he knew his parents would be staying, and that he failed to see his mother because the sun was in his eyes.’

  ‘Yes. I’d say that was a fair enough assumption.’

  ‘Now what about the father? Does he really think his wife is nuts, or does he believe it possible that Vance is alive?’

  ‘Last night, when he phoned me, he obviously didn’t believe it. After all, he’d identified the body. He’d actually seen a corpse, whereas his wife hadn’t! That makes a big difference. It took me a long time to convince him that it might be possible.’

  ‘Did you succeed in convincing him?’

  ‘Of the possibility, yes – but I don’t think he believes it really was his son that his wife saw. Of course, we haven’t anything definite to go on, either, but an idea drifted into my mind as I was driving up from Brighton. Curly said, “They forgot the ring”. By “they” I assume he meant the people, the gang, the organisation behind this strange business. Could it be, I wondered, that they’d killed a man of Vance’s stature and colouring, rigged up his body very carefully in some stolen clothes of Vance’s, and then made one tiny slip – they forgot to put Vance’s signet ring on the dead man’s finger? That seems to be the only possible interpretation of Curly’s tantalising remark. Though, even if it’s true, it still doesn’t explain why they did it.’

  ‘H’m … You put this point of view to Scranton?’

  ‘Yes. He was pretty sceptical. So I put it to him this way: I said, “Mr Scranton, you were met at London Airport and told that your son had been murdered. You were driven down to Sussex to identify a body – a body with most of the features blown off – which several people had already confirmed as your son’s. In other words, you went there expecting to see your son and there was no earthly reason to assume that the body might have been anyone else’s!”’

  ‘But how do you account for other people making the same mistake – Julie Benson, Antoinette Sheen, for instance?’

  ‘For exactly the same reason!’ Holt insisted. ‘If they’d seen a body in Vance’s study, wearing Vance’s clothes, sprawled over a desk with one of Vance’s short stories on it, then obviously it would never enter their heads that it wasn’t Vance!’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ agreed Hyde. ‘Especially as there doesn’t appear to have been anything very striking about the boy. He had no outstanding physical features or birthmarks, it seems.’

  ‘And another thing to be taken into consideration is the fact that his father lives in America and very rarely saw his son. No, to put it bluntly, the one person who knew him most intimately and might perhaps have noticed something – Julie Benson – fainted on the spot, I believe you said?’

  ‘Yes, she did. So in the light of these latest theories, it doesn’t add much weight to the value of her identification.’

  There was an awkward pause, sensed by both men.

  Reluctantly, the Inspector filled it. ‘You’re being very tactful, Holt – refraining from asking how it was that the police slipped up too …’

  ‘Always assuming this new idea holds water,’ Holt hastened to point out.

  Hyde cleared his throat uncomfortably and fiddled with the pencils and memo pad on his desk. ‘My investigation squad were led up the garden path just like everyone else – only in our case it was quite inexcusable. But there it is; even the police are fallible human beings. We were summoned to Deanfriston College because the local police reported that a student named Vance Scranton had been murdered. We went, expecting to find Vance Scranton, and when we got there we found a boy sprawled over a desk, too badly mutilated to identify from photographs. We checked his clothes, his wallet, the articles in the room, the story on the desk, and then, just as a formality, we made the customary fingerprint check.’

  ‘What exactly does that consist of?’

  ‘Taking the prints of the dead man and comparing them with those of Vance Scranton. Everything seemed perfectly in order.’

  ‘But surely you didn’t possess a set of Vance’s fingerprints, did you?’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Then how were you able to compare them?’

  ‘It’s a standard routine. We tested various objects in the study. Scranton’s cigarette case, wallet, books and papers, ornaments on the shelves, his typewriter. The prints on every one of these articles were the prints of the dead man. Of course, I could kick myself now, but that’s merely being wise after the event. I can see that they must have deliberately planted the fingerprints on Vance’s personal effects, knowing full well that everything would tally and that the police would believe it was Vance Scranton and start looking for his murderer.’

  ‘Instead of which we should now be looking for Vance Scranton himself, as well as finding out who was killed, who killed him, and why!’

  ‘It’s getting complicated, isn’t it?’ commented Hyde.

  ‘Complicated,’ Holt mused, ‘but intriguing … I warned the Scrantons that they aren’t out of the wood yet, by the way. They were so overjoyed to think their son might be alive that it took some time for the ugly penny to drop.’

  ‘What do you mean? That Vance himself could be the killer, trying to cover his own tracks by pretending he’s dead? Yes, it’s obvious, isn’t it? I don’t expect they liked hearing that. How have you left matters with them?’

  ‘The important thing now seems to be to get in touch with Vance Scranton. Everything else is secondary. So I told the parents to put on a front; to stay at the Savoy, and try to lead a perfectly normal life, neither too dazed with joy nor too deep in mourning – go shopping, sightseeing, making business calls, and so on. I’m convinced it won’t be too long before Vance contacts them. The father’s promised to ring me the moment he does.’

  Hyde walked to the window and gazed unseeingly at the dismal view. When he eventually spoke his voice was heavy and somewhat despondent. ‘Provided, of course, we’ve got our major premise right: that the boy is alive.’

  ‘You mean you’re doubtful yourself?’

  ‘… A missing ring?… A mother’s wishful thinking?… A cryptic sentence extracted from an old lag in a moment of fear?… It’s not very much to go on, is it?’

  The telephone rang before Holt could reply. The Inspector returned to his desk.

  ‘Hyde speaking … Why, hello, Ruth! How very nice to hear your voice … Don’t tell me Mr Holt makes you work on Sundays too! An attractive young lady like you should be out enjoying herself …’

  Holt leant forward automatically and reached for the phone.

  ‘Certainly, my dear,’ Hyde said into the receiver. He grinned at Holt and waved him aside. ‘No, she wants to speak to me. Go on, Ruth, I’m listening.’

  The Inspector’s side of the conversation was monosyllabic, but he was evidently intrigued by the message. ‘By the way,’ he said at last, ‘we were very pleased with the snapshots you took of those two beauties in the van yesterday. You did a good job there, they may be very helpful. I’m having them checked in
the Rogues’ Gallery. I’ll let you know if they’re identified … Now don’t let Mr Holt overwork you. And thank you for phoning, Ruth. Goodbye.’ He replaced the receiver and leaned back in his chair.

  Holt said, somewhat thinly, ‘You two form an excellent mutual admiration society, don’t you?’

  Hyde gave a sugary smile. ‘Don’t we just! Remarkable girl, that!… Well, Holt, you’ll be interested to know that there’s been fresh confirmation that Vance is alive. Someone else has apparently seen him!’

  ‘Who’s seen him? Where?’

  ‘A man called Jimmy Wade. He’s an undertaker.’

  ‘Funeral director, if you’ll pardon my saying so,’ said Holt slyly. ‘I’ve met him. I wonder what the devil he’s up to? I take it he’s been to the Studio again?’

  ‘Yes. Ruth says he was tremendously excited. He claims to have seen Vance in the Underground at Piccadilly Circus. They were on the escalator; Vance was going up and Wade was going down. Wade couldn’t believe his eyes, and by the time he’d realised who it was it was too late to do anything about it.’

  Holt took out his cigarette case, then returned it to his pocket. He would have one later, he decided. ‘Now you have got me worried,’ he said.

  Hyde looked at the younger man in astonishment. ‘But this is a tremendous stroke of luck, Holt! It confirms your theory that Vance is—’

  ‘It confirms nothing, I’m afraid. For the simple reason that both Ruth and I are convinced that Jimmy Wade is a born liar!’

  Holt took a taxi back to Westminster and, after a brief discussion with Ruth about Wade’s visit, he said with a slight twinge of conscience, ‘You push off now, Ruth. It was good of you to come in this morning.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stay, Philip? There’s still plenty to do and—’

  ‘No, no – I can manage now. You run along. See you tomorrow.’