“Off to make an arrest, Mr. Minto?” asked the clown.
“I have the handcuffs polished,” said Mr. Minto.
It was the last remark he was heard to make for some considerable time. For Detective-Inspector Minto of the C.I.D. disappeared from the scene of the crime shortly after passing Dodo on the stairs.
999
Of all concerned, Lorimer felt Mr. Minto’s disappearance most keenly. When Mr. Minto bounded into his bedroom early that morning, Lorimer had been in that pleasant state of semi-coma which comes to all right-minded persons on realizing that it is high time they were out of bed but refusing to do anything about it. Mr. Minto’s words came to Lorimer as through a mist darkly. He had gathered that Mr. Minto wished him to assist in something or other, but it had been far too early in the morning to take the thing in properly.
An hour or so later, while patting talcum powder on to his chin, the true import of Mr. Minto’s conversation dawned on Lorimer. “Bait” was the word that Mr. Minto had used, and it was to that word that Lorimer took objection. The more he thought about it, the less he liked it. Anton had not died a nice death, either one way or the other. Anton had been on the point of passing on information, and—according to this fellow Minto—he had been silenced. Lorimer, it seemed, was now due for a spot of silencing himself. He had no desire to go the same way as Anton so early in life. There were many things Lorimer wanted to do before he died—appearing in New York and owning a villa on the Mediterranean were two of the most pleasant—and he was dashed if he could see why the idea of a detective using him as bait should upset these plans. No; Lorimer was having none of the bait business. He dressed quickly and went off to tell Mr. Minto that he would have to find another minnow.
Mr. Minto had vanished. He had had breakfast with Dodo, but had left before the clown had finished. Dodo had seen him running downstairs, probably leaving the hotel. The manager and reception-clerk could give no information of Mr. Minto’s movements, and at the same time managed rather cleverly to convey the impression that they knew a great deal more than they cared to tell, but that their lips had been hermetically sealed by Scotland Yard.
As the morning wore on and Mr. Minto failed to materialize, Lorimer grew hotter and hotter. He had left the revolver in his bedroom (where it had given a chambermaid what she described as a “proper turn”), but now he planted it in his right-hand jacket pocket and kept his right hand in the pocket beside it. If he couldn’t get out of being used as bait, he would at least be ready for action. When Joe Carey walked suddenly into the hotel foyer on a friendly visit to Dodo, Lorimer leapt in the air like a shot rabbit and locked himself in the nearest cloak-room. They were after him. To keep his mouth shut. In the same way that Anton’s mouth had been kept shut. Lorimer took out the revolver and looked it over carefully. The inspection did not do much to cheer him. Mr. Minto had removed all ammunition from the gun.
At one o’clock Lorimer went down to the field to prepare for the afternoon performance. He still carried the revolver, and he was rather worried at the thought that he would not be able to take it with him into the ring when he went on to do his act. A pair of white, skin-tight trunks have little or no facilities for the concealment of odd revolvers. The costumes which Lorimer and Loretta wore in their act did not even allow them to carry loose change about with them. He undressed and stepped into his trunks, slipped a dressing-gown on and went out to watch the rest of the show from the wings. A new trainer had been recruited from a Paris circus to take over Anton’s act; he had flown across that morning, and was going on without a rehearsal. He was supposed to be good, if not in Anton’s class; the important thing was that the tigers seemed to have taken to him. Lorimer wanted to see how the act went; he stood in the wings and peered through the plush curtains.
On the other side of the curtain stood Mr. Joseph Carey, resplendent in slightly soiled evening-dress. Mr. Carey would don a new boiled shirt for this evening’s show; for a matinée performance with attendances down owing to the bad business of Miller, the slightly soiled shirt would do the turn. He was talking in a low voice to someone standing beside him. Lorimer could not see who his companion was; he was afraid to move the curtain in case of being seen. He heard Carey’s conversation, or as much of it as he wanted to hear. The other man did not speak.
“He’s on to something,” Carey was saying. “He knows Miller didn’t do it. He’s narrowed it down to three—Lorimer, you, me. God knows how he did it, but he has. I’ve left a note at his hotel asking him to come and see me tonight. We can keep him quiet for a week or so. After that Carey’s circus will probably be up for sale. I shan’t be sorry. It’s a damned expensive way of running things, anyway.”
Lorimer walked back from the plush curtains and thought this out. Carey was talking of Mr. Minto, that was evident. Mr. Minto, it seemed, was in danger of being used as a spot of bait himself. He ran back to his tent and scribbled a note:
Come and see me before going to Carey.—Lorimer.
He walked out and looked round for someone who could spare the time to deliver the message. One of the boys who sold cigarettes and chocolates was wandering aimlessly round the tigers’ cage. The circus patrons did not buy a great deal of cigarettes and practically no chocolates, and the boy had evidently given up all idea of making a sale until the interval came along. Lorimer whistled him across and gave him the note.
“Do you know where the Station Hotel is?”
“Sure.”
“Take that note along. Right away. I’ll give you half a dollar when you get back.”
“What about His Nibs?”
“I’ll look after His Nibs for you,” said Lorimer.
The boy disentangled himself from his tray and went to park it in a caravan. Lorimer ran back to the wings; it was getting near the cue for his act. He watched Miss St. Clair putting her Educated Ponies through their paces, and Loretta came up and joined him.
“How’s the bait?” asked Loretta.
“Shut up!” said Lorimer. “Don’t tempt Providence.”
The plush curtains parted and Dodo pushed his way through them and past Lorimer and Loretta. He seemed in a considerable hurry. He ran round the back of the tent and disappeared up the other alleyway—the entrance used by the animals.
“What’s the matter with him?” asked Loretta.
“He’s gagging before our act. The whole show’s upside-down with this new fellow in. Come on—that’s our cue.”
The spotlights swivelled round to shine on Loretta and Lorimer as they entered the ring. There was a round of polite applause from an audience who felt slightly cheated by the fact that the show was more than half over and not a single performer had yet been mauled. The long rope-ladder was let down and Lorimer and Loretta shot up to the roof of the big tent. They landed on their little platform and took a further round of applause. The band changed its tune.
“I’ve heard something,” said Lorimer. “That fellow Minto’s right. There is something dirty going on. I heard Carey planning to keep Minto quiet—he’s got the wind up.”
“Why—did he kill Anton, do you think?”
“Don’t know. Shouldn’t be surprised. Carry on.…”
Lorimer, hanging on to the trapeze, shoved himself off the platform with a kick of his heels and swung out over the ring. He gathered speed and swung backwards and forwards, and then let go of the trapeze and shot head downwards through the air to the lower trapeze. He shot out again over the heads of the cheap seats, and then back into the middle of the ring. He leapt again and reached out for the first trapeze, sent out to meet him by Loretta.
Loretta, watching his face as it came up through the air towards her, gave a little gasp. She knew that Lorimer was not going to catch the first trapeze as he usually caught it. He very nearly failed to catch it at all; only a last throw of the body shot him towards it.…He clung desperately to the rung by his fingers a
nd hoisted himself on to the platform. The trapeze swung back loosely into the air. The band crashed out a chord; the house applauded wildly.
“You were late in throwing that out,” said Lorimer.
“I wasn’t. There’s something the matter with it—it’s not the usual length.”
“Rubbish! You were late, I tell you.”
“I wasn’t. There’s something wrong with it.”
“Never mind—get on.…”
Lorimer, watching Loretta sail out on the trapeze, turned round on the platform and looked down to the edge of the ring below him. The ropes which raised or lowered the higher of the two trapezes stretched down to the spot at the ringside where they could be adjusted if necessary. Joe Carey was standing at that spot. He was staring up at Lorimer, high in the roof of the tent. Lorimer turned round to see Loretta half-way on her journey back to the platform. Instead of hanging to the trapeze by his ankles, he shot himself out, clinging by the hands, and stretching his body down as far as he could. Even so, Loretta only managed to grasp his ankles by a matter of inches. She clung on desperately, struggled to secure a better grip, and at last hoisted herself up on to the platform. Lorimer landed beside her, sweating.
“What’s the idea?” said Loretta. “Why did you go out that way?”
“This trapeze has been heightened,” said Lorimer. “You were right—it’s six inches higher than usual. If I hadn’t gone out that way you couldn’t have caught me. You’d have been killed.…”
“Who’s done it?”
“Look—down there. Carey.…”
“Come on—we’ll end the act.”
“We can’t. They can’t do anything now. We know they’ve changed it—we can’t make a miss now. Carry on.”
Loretta swung out again, turned her two somersaults in mid-air, connected with the other trapeze at the last possible moment, shot back again and passed Lorimer in mid-air. They passed again: Lorimer was back on the higher trapeze, Loretta swinging far out at the opposite side of the tent. It was here that Lorimer had to carry off his nonchalant business of putting his beret straight, dropping, and hanging on by the ankles to catch Loretta when it seemed too late for anything but a tragedy to happen. He found it difficult to bother about the beret…sitting, swinging his legs on the trapeze, he felt it being raised…three inches, no more. But enough—quite enough.
He dropped at once, holding tightly on by the ankles. He realized that it was hopeless. This was a trick that was timed to a fraction of a second and measured to a fraction of an inch. Three inches smashed the whole thing. He yelled out to Loretta:
“Don’t jump!”
He saw Loretta rush through the air towards him—saw her let go of the other trapeze with one hand…threw himself towards her in an effort to save her. She did not need his saving; she had heard him, and hung grimly to the trapeze with one hand. The jerk which Lorimer had given towards her threw him off his balance. His ankles slipped from their hold round the rung of the trapeze. He gave a little scream and fell to the sawdust below him. There was a crack as his bones broke…an unpleasant sound. A woman near the ringside yelled and screamed hysterically.
Loretta, swinging on the other trapeze, looked down at the still body lying in the ring. No one was there. Carey had gone.
Chapter Fifteen
Mr. Minto, meanwhile, was learning a whole lot about the vacuum-cleaner business.
Vacuum-cleaner canvassing is not an easy job. Young Mr. Briggs, who was due to marry Claire Minto at two o’clock on the following Saturday, was forced, poor soul, to spend his last days of freedom ringing door-bells, giving demonstrations, and getting snubbed in various degrees of rudeness. His job, it seemed, allowed only the very minimum of time off for such unimportant matters as marriages, and a honeymoon was out of the question, at any rate for the time being. Young Mr. Briggs, who by all the rules of the game ought to have been in the middle of his first quarrel of married life round about the Monday after his wedding, had to be in Norwich that day, complete with sample vacuum; he was scheduled to open a crusade to make the housewives of that city vacuum-conscious at nine o’clock on the Monday morning.
Having cleaned up Norwich in the course of a week’s canvassing, Mr. Briggs passed on to pastures new and worked his way north, calling at York, Middlesbrough, Durham, and Newcastle-on-Tyne in the order named.
Then he transported his vacuum to Wales, and after that did a round of the Lancashire towns. There was a sporting chance that, after he had thoroughly vacuumed Preston (which would take some considerable time), he would be allowed a fortnight’s holiday in order to take a belated honeymoon. Until then Claire had to wait.
Mr. Minto squeezed all this information out of his sister, whom he visited immediately after passing Dodo on the stairs of the hotel. He did not approve of pumping his kith and kin; in fact, pumping in any form was not a thing of which Mr. Minto was particularly fond. He preferred to solve his cases slowly and by degrees rather than quickly and by third degree, but in this case a little pumping seemed unavoidable. Sister Claire had proved an apt pumpee—it was the first time that Mr. Minto had shown any interest at all in the young man whom she was about to marry, and Claire was only too eager to talk about him and his work. Had she known to what purpose Mr. Minto was going to use the information, she might not have allowed her tongue to wag quite so freely. But then, had she known more about young Briggs she might not have said “yes” quite so quickly and loudly on the evening when he proposed to her.
Mr. Minto, having pumped, left her abruptly and paid a visit to the circus advance publicity manager.
“Where do you go after this week?” he asked.
“Norwich, sir,” said the publicity man. “A week in Norwich.”
“Yes…I thought so,” said Mr. Minto.
It might, of course, be a mere coincidence that Mr. Briggs was to canvass for his vacuums at the same time as the canvas of the circus tents went up in Norwich.
“And after Norwich?”
“York, sir. Another week in York. We only did three days there last summer, but we did such good business that we’re trying a week this year.”
“And after that?”
“Middlesbrough. Three days in Middlesbrough and three in Durham—worse luck. My old woman lives in Durham. Then we have a week in Newcastle. Why, sir? You’re thinking of staying with us that long, are you?”
“Heaven forbid!” said Mr. Minto. “I’m leaving you tomorrow—I hope. I’ve got other things to attend to. After Newcastle, I suppose you go down to Wales, do you?”
“As a matter of fact, sir, we do.”
“And then Blackburn and Bolton and Preston and all those places?”
“That’s right, sir. How did you know that?”
“A little bird told me,” said Mr. Minto, and went off to look at the Norman ruins.
The Norman ruins were not particularly impressive, and what interest they had had been largely removed by the Office of Works, who had patched them up in odd places with red sandstone. To Mr. Minto they looked very like the inner-tubes of motor-car tyres with a number of new and pink spots attached to cover up the punctures. He was not really interested in the ruins. He had only visited them because he could sit down on what few portions the Office of Works had made sittable and think things out without being disturbed. Young Briggs, it was quite obvious, was connected in some way with Carey’s Circus. He was no ordinary vacuum-cleaner canvasser. Was he connected in some way with the death of Anton? Mr. Minto devoutly hoped not. At the same time his mind was made up on one point…the marriage arranged between Claire Minto and Ronald Briggs, to take place at two o’clock on the following Saturday, would not take place. Not, at any rate, if he could help it.
It was at this point that Mr. Minto lit a pipe and, turning round to shield the match from the breeze, caught sight of a figure labouring up the hill towards the Norman ruins
. A slim young man, carrying a case of peculiar shape. Mr. Minto could not believe that the gods, who up to now had been behaving so awkwardly, had suddenly decided to give him a break. The young man with the case was Mr. Briggs.
The houses around the hill on which the ruins were situated were large, solid affairs with a great deal of ivy and a greenhouse apiece. Mr. Minto imagined that the town’s gentry lived in these parts, and thought to himself that young Briggs was wasting his time trying to secure a demonstration, let alone a sale, in a locality like this. It was only the people who could not afford expensive vacuum cleaners who bought them nowadays, according to Mr. Minto’s experience; those who were able to afford a dozen vacuums preferred their houses to be cleaned by much elbow-grease and many maids.
He sat still on his piece of ruin and watched Mr. Briggs turn into one of the big houses, walk up the long drive, and ring the door-bell. And, what is more important, disappear at once inside the house. Sales-resistance was conspicuous by its absence: Mr. Briggs was received with open arms. It was the first time that Mr. Minto had known a vacuum-cleaner canvasser to be allowed inside a house without at least a preliminary skirmish on the door-step, and it intrigued him.
He waited until the salesman reappeared some ten minutes later, and prepared to watch him continue his assault on the other houses along the street. But young Briggs did nothing of the kind. He was evidently satisfied with the business he had done in his one call, and he set off at a brisk pace along the street. Mr. Minto jumped down from his ruin and followed him at a discreet distance.
He spent the whole morning following young Mr. Briggs. It was hot work, and Mr. Minto began to think things about the people who argued that a stiff collar was preferable to a soft collar in sultry weather. Young Briggs appeared to have a widely scattered constituency. From his call at the big house in the west end of the town he went right into the centre of the town and visited a block of solicitors’ offices, where he stayed for two minutes only. Mr. Minto was not surprised at the shortness of his stay; what did surprise him was that young Briggs should think it worth his while to call on a solicitors’ office at all. Did solicitors use vacuums in their offices? Mr. Minto had never heard of such a thing.
Death of Anton Page 17