by John Rowland
The notebook itself had nothing in it which conveyed much to me. It had various queer combinations of figures scrawled in it. It seemed to me that these were either some sort of gambling system or notes of mathematical problems. In either case, it did not seem to me that they could convey anything to the ordinary reader, or that they could have any sort of direct connexion with the man’s death. That was, unless they were really some sort of private shorthand, written in a code which I, for one, was totally unable to decipher in the time which was likely to be at my disposal before the arrival of the police.
So, I slipped the little notebook into my hip-pocket. I knew that I might well have left fingerprints on these things, but I had no time to mess about, trying to remove them; and in any event I guessed that the police were not likely to try to see if there were any finger-prints on things safely stowed away in the pockets of a murdered man. They would not miss the notebook, anyhow. The weapon was what they were most likely to concentrate on. And I had been very careful to have nothing to do with that.
Now I had a look at it. I walked all round it, studying it from all angles. My first impression was confirmed by this detailed study. It was undoubtedly the knife that was issued to Commando troops during the war. Just how it had found its way here was, of course, a problem that I couldn’t solve—not at the moment, at any rate.
Then the light in the lift changed. I had pushed the gates to, but hadn’t locked them. Now they had been pulled to one side by someone standing on the promenade.
“Hullo, hullo, hullo!” said a rich, unctuous voice. “And what has been going on here?”
Chapter III
In Which an Intruder Appears
I needn’t say that I was a trifle alarmed. I had, of course, realised that there was quite a possibility of someone wanting to use the lift. But somehow there was something unexpected about this newcomer. I don’t quite know what it was; but that there was something odd about him it was totally impossible for me to deny.
“I beg your pardon, sir?” I said querulously.
“My remark was ‘Hullo, hullo, hullo,’” he said with a cheery grin. He was a tall, fat, red-faced fellow of sixty or so, and his face was wrinkled and happy.
“I heard that,” I said. “But I am afraid that I must ask you not to get into this lift just at the moment, if you don’t mind.”
“This is a public lift, I take it,” he said, still grinning, but with a suggestion, somehow, of steely strength behind the cheerful countenance.
“It is,” I agreed readily enough, standing so as to guard the newcomer from a possible view of the body. I still thought that this corpse was, in a way, my property, and the fewer people that knew about it, the better I should be pleased.
“If it is a public lift,” the newcomer said, the grin slowly fading from his red face, “can you kindly inform me why it is that you have the right to ask me not to get into it? On the other hand, perhaps you would be so kind as to inform me who you are, and by what right you debar me from taking my place in what is a public vehicle?”
The shutters were down now with a vengeance. The grin had completely vanished from the cheery face. It was, in fact, no longer a cheery face, but one which was grim and earnest. I saw that I should have to put up a pretty good argument to persuade this fellow that I was in the right. There was no doubt that he was, in his own opinion, entitled to ask for a ride in the lift. And short of telling him that there had been a murder (which was something that I was sturdily resolved not to do) I did not see what I could do.
“There has been an accident,” I explained, temporising as far as I was able.
The grin returned. The man, it seemed, positively doted on accidents.
“What sort of accident?” he asked.
“An accident on the lift,” I replied, somewhat obviously.
“You mean to say that the machinery of the lift has gone wrong, I take it?” he commented. This verbal fencing didn’t really amuse me, but I didn’t see what other course of action I could take.
“No,” I admitted. “As far as I am aware, the lift is still in working order.”
“Then why,” he enquired, “am I not permitted to use it? And why, my dear sir, are you—whom I have never before seen in my life and who may therefore certainly be denounced as not the regular lift operator—why are you demanding that I should walk down about ten thousand infernal steps to the beach when there is a perfectly good lift available?”
I thought that there was little that I could do with this man. He looked like proving a confounded nuisance; there was no doubt, indeed, that I should have to tell him something about what was going on. I didn’t really intend to reveal exactly what had taken place, but at the same time I felt pretty sure that unless I gave him some inkling, it would be impossible to get rid of him. And I had no desire that he should still be there when the police arrived on the scene. I knew that I should have enough to do in the way of awkward explanation, without having to do this in the presence of a stranger who had managed to attach himself to the party while Aloysius Bender was fetching someone from the police station.
“Someone has been hurt,” I said.
“Badly?”
“Pretty badly, yes.” No harm, I told myself, in admitting as much.
“Killed?”
“Ye-es.” I was sorry that I had gone so far now, but having gone so far, I did not see that I could very well stop short, without involving myself in all sorts of other explanations which I wanted to avoid.
“Murder?” This was the one question that I had been fervently hoping he would not ask. I might, however, have known that it would come.
“I don’t know yet,” I answered.
“Police not here yet?” he went on, and by this time his grin had become something positively fiendish.
“No,” I said.
“On the way?”
“Yes,” I said. You will observe the way in which the chap had driven me, so to speak, into a conversational corner, so that it was well-nigh impossible for me to avoid telling him the very things that I had wanted to keep to myself.
“Mind if I have a look?” he went on, still grinning. He adroitly stepped past me into the lift. I had made up my mind not to tell him anything, or let him learn anything about what was going on. But he managed to get the best of me, and there was mighty little that I could do about it.
“Whew!” He whistled quietly to himself as he looked down at the body. “He got what was coming to him, didn’t he?”
“Know the fellow?” I asked curiously. I was watching the newcomer carefully, and I was pretty sure, in my own mind, that he was not all that he appeared to be on the surface. I was, in other words, fairly certain that he had quite deliberately set out to see what was happening, that he had, in fact, some kind of knowledge of the murder. My instinct might, of course, be at fault, for I had no real knowledge of what had happened. But at the same time the instinct of a journalist with a nose for news is rarely at fault.
The man looked at me with a quizzical smile when I enquired if he knew the murdered man. “Do you know, I rather think I do know the fellow,” he said, after a momentary pause. “In fact, I’m pretty certain that I have seen him a few times before the present sad occasion.”
“Then who is he?” I asked.
“A somewhat bad lot, if I am not mistaken.”
This was not quite what I had expected. Still, I knew that it would be as well not to show any sort of surprise. I merely raised my eyebrows slightly, and said: “A bad lot? What exactly do you mean by that?”
My companion grinned, but there was no humour about the expression. There was, in fact, a kind of savagery about it, which I by no means liked.
“He had a finger in many a dirty pie,” was the reply. “He dabbled in all sorts of crooked games. In fact, he was a bad hat generally. By name Tilsley, if I’m not mistaken. And
he seems to have upset someone pretty badly, for them to have dealt with him like that, eh?”
This was not quite the response that I had anticipated. Still, I was resolved to pick the man’s brains, without giving away any kind of information on my side.
“Might I have your name, do you think?” I therefore asked him; though I thought, actually, that there might be a fairly considerable difficulty in persuading the man to tell me just who he was.
“My name is Watford,” he said, “Cyrus Watford, to be precise. I have the pleasure—if pleasure is the correct word—of practising the science (or should I say art?) of medicine in this town. I have encountered the late lamented Mr. Tilsley in connexion with my profession.”
This was straightforward enough, though I was by no means sure why a man who was apparently a perfectly ordinary doctor should come into contact with a man whom he knew enough about to describe as a “bad hat.”
“And so,” I said, “you got to know Mr. Tilsley well enough to know that he was a bad lot?”
“Yes.” That was laconic enough, in all conscience. There was, I thought, a definite tendency on the part of the man to dry up as I showed signs of wanting to know a bit more about him, and about his acquaintanceship with the dead man. Whether Dr. Watford was all that he appeared to be on the surface, or whether there was more in his appearance on the scene of the crime than met the eye, was something that would have, I decided, to be investigated, and investigated soon. It would, in fact, take a pretty high position on the list of things that I had to study before I was much older.
“Did you want to get down to the beach, Doctor?” I asked, more with the aim of keeping him in conversation than anything else.
“I did want to,” he replied, “but in view of the revelation that has met me here, I think that I shall change my mind, and just stick around, as our American friends so expressively say.”
This suited me well enough. I thought that it would be of some value if the man could be induced to stay on the scene until such time as the police arrived. If I could contrive to hang about, it might well be that the man would be given the chance of giving himself away. And I was firmly convinced that this strange doctor was connected with the death of Tilsley more closely than he had himself admitted.
“Have the police been informed of this lamentable occurrence?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I already told you that.”
“How?”
I smiled. “Another witness went to fetch the police,” I explained. “They should be along here at any moment now.”
The doctor looked at the watch on his wrist. “I think,” he said hurriedly, “that it would be as well if I made a move.”
“So suddenly?” I asked with a grin.
“I have patients whom I have to see, my dear sir,” he replied, with what was doubtless intended to be a disarming smile, though it did not strike me that way.
“At nine o’clock in the morning, doctor?” I enquired. I didn’t bother to try to conceal my disbelief. It was too clear for words that the man was anxious, if it were at all possible, to dodge seeing the police.
“A doctor’s is a busy day, my dear friend,” he said. “His work is never done, you might say. In fact, at all hours of the day he is at the beck and call of all and sundry—particularly if I may say as much without appearing to be in any way nasty, of those who fancy themselves to be much more ill than in actuality they are.”
That speech sounded straightforward enough. But I couldn’t get out of my mind the fact that the fellow had been quite prepared to go on talking to me until he recalled the fact that the police were likely to appear on the scene. When that got home in his mind, he was in a tearing hurry to get away without delay.
Still, it was, of course, impossible for me to detain him. I had, for one thing, no legitimate standing in the case myself. And even had I some standing, there was no reason that I could lay my mind to, which would enable me to keep Doctor Watford there. Yet there was a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind, a suspicion which refused to be quieted, and which suggested that there was something fundamentally wrong about the man. It was not that there was anything about his conversation which did not ring true; it was not even that his attitude seemed in any way incorrect. He might, I told myself, be everything that he held himself out to be. He might be a doctor who dealt with Tilsley as a patient, and who somehow had stumbled on some secret of Tilsley’s which indicated that the man was a criminal. But there was something about him which to my mind suggested the fake and the phoney. Just what it was I could not for the life of me decide; but I made a mental note to study the doctor as much as I could. For the moment, it was certain, I had to let him go.
“So you are on your way, Doctor?” I said quietly, studying his countenance as I spoke. I’ll swear that it was a look of the most intense relief that came over it as he began to realise that I was not going to try to keep him on the scene of the crime. This was, again, a reason for studying the man with great care in the future.
“Yes. I’m a busy man, sir,” he said with a businesslike air. “My patients must come first, much though I would like to remain here and help the police in the investigations which must undoubtedly begin ere long.”
And he was away, with long swinging strides that got him over the ground at a deceptively fast rate. I thought that I had seldom seen a man so delighted to be getting away; but I could not really make up my mind why he had been so pleased. That there was something more than a trifle suspicious about the doctor seemed to be an unavoidable conclusion; but what the suspicions really amounted to it was difficult to say.
I glanced at my watch. Things had happened so quickly that it seemed impossible that only about ten minutes had elapsed since I had sent Aloysius Bender in search of the police. Yet such was the case. All the argument with Doctor Watford had, in fact, taken only about eight minutes.
Still, Bender had said that he thought the police station was about ten minutes’ walk. That meant that the police would be on the scene at any moment now—for it was sure enough that they would waste no time in coming along when once Bender had told his tale.
I swung open the lift gates and glanced cautiously up and down the promenade. It was still fairly peaceful; there were few people about. I supposed that most of the visitors were probably having their breakfast. Certainly it was a lucky thing for me that there were not crowds clamouring to be taken down to the beach. I should probably have found it none too easy to explain to them what had happened.
Then I saw a figure in blue in the distance. Slightly behind it was the limping man whose strange behaviour had first brought me into contact with this case. And behind him was a tall, spare man who seemed to me to be vaguely familiar, though I could not for the moment quite place him. Anyhow, there was no doubt that the police were coming. Now I had to face what might well be a trying cross-examination. Still, I had brought it on myself, and if I got into a jam or a tangle I had only myself to blame for it.
Chapter IV
In Which the Police Arrive
I swung open the gates of the lift to allow the police to enter. And certainly Mr. Bender had told his tale well, for the limbs of the law had come along in force. There was a uniformed constable, a sergeant, and a grim-looking man with a military moustache, whom I soon learned to be Inspector Beech of the Kent County Constabulary. This was an impressive array of police talent; but in the background—that spare figure who had seemed familiar to me in the distance—was a man whom I was unfeignedly glad to see on the spot. If I had got myself in any sort of jam as a result of my excess of journalistic zeal he was undoubtedly the boy to get me out of that jam. He was, in fact, my old pal Detective-Inspector Shelley of New Scotland Yard. But just how he had contrived to get in on a murder on the coast of Kent within ten minutes of its discovery was something that I found difficult to understand.
“Hullo, Jimmy,
” Shelley said, holding out his hand in friendly fashion.
“Good-morning, Inspector,” I said, only too delighted to have my credentials thus established early on in the case.
“You seem to make a habit of being in on the beginnings of murders, my lad,” Shelley said. “Only last time it was in a London night-club. Still, don’t go finding too many bodies for us, Jimmy. We have suspicious minds in the force, you know.”
This was all said in an airy enough manner, as if the Inspector knew that I shouldn’t take it too seriously. But I thought that behind it there might well be a hint not to assume that I should be quite beyond suspicion, merely because I was an old friend of the man from Scotland Yard.
I merely grinned. “Who are your friends, Inspector?” I asked. I was duly introduced. Inspector Beech gave me an unwinking stare that seemed to suggest he was not very impressed by me. I felt, under his glare, rather like a second-form schoolboy summoned to the headmaster’s study.
It soon came out that Shelley had been staying with the Chief Constable, and, when my friend Bender had arrived at the police station, Shelley had actually been there, being shown round the premises by the chief, who was an old friend of his. He had forthwith rung Scotland Yard and had obtained permission to retain Shelley for a day or two, until it became clear whether this was a case which needed expert attention or not.
I thought that I could see more than a trace of resentment in Inspector Beech’s manner. This was in many ways understandable, since he would probably not much like the idea of Shelley’s being called in—though, naturally, he could not let Shelley see this.
Still, I thought that I should no doubt come under Beech’s suspicious eye, since, as an admitted friend of Shelley’s, I should more or less automatically be accepted as an unfriendly person.