by Leo Bruce
Doris could not take her eyes from him.
“I don’t like it,” she said to Vivienne. “There’s something queer about him. Look at the way he’s drinking that whisky as though he’d got a train to catch. Glad I don’t sleep in the hotel. I shouldn’t have a moment’s peace thinking about it.”
“Oh well,” volunteered Vivienne chattily.
“You don’t think he’s escaped from Somewhere, do you? He might have, you know. I was only reading in the paper the other day …”
At this point the man under discussion came up to the bar.
“Where’s the telephone?” he asked.
“There isn’t one, not in the bar,” exclaimed Doris. “You’ll have to go through to the hall. You’ll see it there. It’s got ‘Telephone’ up on it. You’ll need coppers, though, because it’s a public box. Did you want a local call?”
The man hesitated.
“Yes,” he said at last.
“I can give you coppers if you want them.”
Without answering the man went towards the door leading to the hall.
“There,” said Doris. “I told you there was something funny about him. Did you notice the way he looks at you with those eyes? Seem to go right into you. Didn’t it give you a queer feeling?”
“Mmmm,” said Vivienne, dubiously negative.
“Well it did me. Soon as ever I saw him. I hope he doesn’t come back in here. He’s had four doubles already.” She turned to a customer. “Yes, Mr Stringer? A nice light ale? There was something I was going to tell you.” She was soon leaning forward while Mr Stringer, torn between her whisper and his thirst, uneasily inclined his head. After he had taken a long draught, he began to nod appreciatively and in his turn to reply. “So it wasn’t what it looked like being, was it?” said Doris at last releasing him.
It was at least ten minutes before the man returned and ordered another large Scotch, served in silence by Vivienne.
“Did you get through?” asked Doris chattily.
“No. No reply from any of them,” said the man.
“There. Isn’t it a nuisance when you want to call someone and there’s no answer? Still, you can try again later, can’t you? You staying long?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“It’s a bit quiet this time of year. I mean, look at the weather. You can’t expect people to come to the seaside when it’s like this. It’s not raining though, is it? Just dark and blowy. Still, you’re all right. You’re staying in the hotel. You haven’t got to go out in it.”
“Who says I haven’t?” he asked rather fiercely.
“Well of course I don’t know. I only thought that as you were staying in the hotel …”
“Give me another Scotch.”
Doris seemed subdued for a moment as she served him.
It was the man who spoke again.
“I’ve got business to attend to here,” he said.
“I thought you must have,” said Doris. “No one comes much in the winter otherwise.”
The man’s large eyes, which had an expression of resentment but of anxiety or even fear too, watched Doris fixedly, but she thought they showed a certain glazed haziness. The whisky so steadily swallowed was beginning to have its effect. When he next spoke he used a surprising phrase.
“I’m presumed dead,” he said.
Doris tried a startled giggle.
“Whatever do you mean?” she asked. “You’re alive enough.”
“Presumed dead,” said the man impatiently. “Have been for years though I did not know it. How would you like to be presumed dead?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Doris uncomfortably.
“When nothing’s heard of you after a time your family can consider you a dead man. That’s what I mean. I’ve been a dead man for years. Now I’m coming to life again.”
“That’s a funny way to talk,” said Doris.
“I’ll tell you something else,” said the man. “There’s more than one in this town who won’t be at all pleased at my resurrection.” A very unpleasant smile appeared on his face. “They won’t be at all pleased.”
“Do you know it well?” asked Doris, aiming at normal talk. “Selby-on-Sea, I mean?”
“Never been here before in my life,” said the man, motioning to show he wanted yet another whisky. “But I’ve … blood ties with it, you might say.”
“You do say funny things,” said Doris, looking anything but amused.
“And I do funny things, too,” the man told her. “Especially to those who do funny things to me.”
He moved away from the counter and Doris watched him find a place in a far corner of the room.
“He gives me the creeps,” she confided to Vivienne. “I don’t know what he’s on about half the time, death and resurrection and that.”
“Religious, perhaps,” said Vivienne indifferently as she served a small gin-and-pep.
“It’s not that,” said Doris. “Presumed dead, was what he told me and now he’s come to life again. He says some won’t be pleased at that, and I don’t wonder.”
“Mmmm,” agreed Vivienne absently on two notes.
“When George comes in to do the fire I’m going to ask him to see what name that fellow’s given in the hall. Sounded so funny about people in the town not being pleased to see him. I’d like to know who he is.”
George duly appeared at nine o’clock and was sent on his mission. He came back to tell Doris that the new guest’s name was Ernest Rafter.
“Can’t say I’ve ever heard it,” Doris regretfully told Vivienne. “It’s not one of the regular customers anyway. That’s not saying it isn’t known in the town, though.”
Vivienne somehow thought she’d heard the name but couldn’t remember where. She did not sound interested.
Half an hour later the man called Ernest Rafter brought his glass to the counter but did not order another drink. He moved with the peculiar deliberateness of one who is controlling his own tipsiness.
“I shall leave it till tomorrow,” he told Doris ambiguously. “Plenty of time then. I don’t feel like tackling it tonight.”
“Going to bed, are you? That’s right. You get a nice night’s sleep and you’ll feel better tomorrow.”
“I am not going to bed. I don’t need a nice night’s sleep and I feel perfectly well tonight,” retorted the man sulkily.
“You do whatever you think best, then. I was only saying.”
“I shall go for a walk,” said Ernest Rafter obstinately.
“What, in all that wind? It cuts right through you like a razor. Wherever are you going?”
“Promenade,” said the man. “There is a promenade, isn’t there?”
“Of course there is. Ever so nice it is in summer. But there won’t be many out there tonight.”
“Suits me. Good night.”
“Cheerio,” said Doris and watched him march resolutely to the door. “He’s had too much,” she told Vivienne. “I can’t think what he’s going down to the front for, unless it’s to cool his head. He’ll certainly do that in this wind, won’t he?”
“Mmmm,” said Vivienne, agreeing.
Meanwhile Ernest Rafter made straight for the sea as though he went to an appointment. His light raincoat did little to protect him from the wind and his head and shoulders were thrust forward. He passed almost no one on his way down Carter Street which ran from the Queen Victoria hotel to the promenade, not even a policeman trying doors or a conscientious drinker coming from his pub. One bundle of rather aged womanhood and a young man with hands in pockets ostentatiously without a coat were the only people he saw and of these he took no notice.
“Tomorrow,” he said irritably and aloud, as he reached the promenade. It was as though he was answering someone’s nagging questions. ‘Tomorrow,’ he was thinking. ‘There’s plenty of time. They’ll have to pay for my hotel. Might even stay for a while.’
Had he been sober enough for surprise he would have found it odd that t
he asphalt was not quite deserted. Even by the reduced lighting he could see several hurrying figures and coming towards him was a young policeman who had evidently just completed a tour of inspection of the promenade. The policeman seemed to eye him rather fixedly but said nothing as he passed.
Ernest Rafter breathed heavily. The cold wind seemed to make his head swim and he hesitated, as though trying to decide which direction to take, to the left towards the bandstand or to the right, towards the end of the promenade and the last shelter. He chose the right.
As he walked he was passed more than once but was almost unaware of it and certainly had no idea what sort of being had gone by. On the contrary he believed himself alone, but he was accustomed to that. He had no friends and wanted none. More than half drunk but obstinately determined to complete the walk he had undertaken, he pushed forward against the wind. He passed several shelters which seemed to offer a respite from his drunken battle with the elements, but resisted the temptation to sit down.
It was not until he came to the last shelter, curiously isolated it seemed, that he felt at last he must rest. He was just sober enough to choose a seat on the lee side. In a few moments he was in a cramped and stertorous sleep.
3
THE policeman whom Ernest Rafter had passed was called Sitwell and had been on the promenade beat for about a fortnight. He was an ambitious and idealistic young man who believed in the high purpose of law and order and saw himself and his fellow policemen as avenging angels in a population conveniently divided
into black and white, cops and robbers. He longed to catch a criminal.
Leaving the promenade he made his way over to the bottom of Carter Street. He did not ascend it, however, but followed the row of shops facing the sea and conscientiously tried door-handles as he passed. He did not hurry, having been taught to adopt the slow, swinging pace of the policeman. An hour later he returned to the promenade for his second tour of inspection.
There were times, he had to admit, when he was depressed by the law-abiding dullness of Selby-on-Sea. He had been here six months and except for one disturbance outside a public house in which he had intervened successfully, there had been no opportunity for him to distinguish himself. Not even the public lavatories had provided him with a conviction and the only time he had found a car where parking was forbidden it had earned him a reprimand, for it belonged to a local magistrate notably sympathetic to police evidence in court. To a young man burning with the ambition to bring evil-doers to the bar of justice it was discouraging.
Each day he read in his newspaper of the ‘crime wave’ which seemed to rampage everywhere but in Selby-on-Sea. Hold-ups, warehouse robberies, wage-snatches, arson, murder and general mayhem were all over the country except in the town to which he, Graham Sitwell, had been posted. He began to think he would end his days as an old station tea-drinker with nothing to show for his enthusiasm but a couple of liquor-out-of-hours convictions, a few queers and exhibitionists sentenced and the usual motoring offences brought to book.
Take tonight, for instance. It should be a promising one, by all fictional standards, a blustering wind along a half-lit promenade deserted except by a few hardy visitors. The ideal setting for a crime, yet what chance was there?
Just for a moment an hour ago when he had passed that man with the staring eyes who looked as though he was half cut, Sitwell’s hopes had risen. A strange-looking creature, that had seemed, apparently undecided as to what to do. But the man had marched on, his pace unwavering. It was always like that, Sitwell’s potential baby-snatchers, rapists or screwsmen turned out to be harmless citizens on their way home.
There were several pedestrians on the promenade, which was surprising since it was a quarter to eleven and an angry night, but Sitwell was sure he would know most of them by sight.
Here for instance came Lobbin, the newsagent, a large ungainly man reputed to be bullied by his wife. The poor chap had probably come out for a brief escape from her. He wore a thick scarf and had his hand up to hold on to his hat as he passed Sitwell but not, the policeman thought, with any idea of being unrecognized. He did not say good evening but that meant nothing as Sitwell had done no more than go into his shop in civvy clothes. But Sitwell turned after Lobbin had passed and, as though looking out to sea, watched him from the corner of his eye till he had crossed the road and disappeared in the direction of his shop. Sitwell resumed his slow, dignified walk in the direction of the farthest shelter.
He saw a man and woman coming towards him but as they drew nearer he failed to recognize them. The woman was the taller of the two and though Sitwell could not see much of her face he thought there was something mannish in her gait and build. Trained to observe, he looked down at her feet and thought they were unusually large, but decided that the half light was deceiving. They had certainly not passed him on any of his previous visits to the promenade, tonight or on other nights. They did not speak as they went by—scarcely surprising in this wind. He passed a fair-haired hatless youth, then reached the Public Lavatory, but it was locked for the night. Between it and the most distant shelter of the promenade there was only one other shelter, near which the road ceased to run beside the promenade and curved inland, leaving a V of public garden, also locked at night. It was his misfortune, he reflected, to come on duty after these two otherwise promising venues for law-breaking were closed to the public.
He caught up with a little plump man who was walking very slowly and looking out to sea. He had seen this man on other evenings, always walking rather briskly. Tonight it was either the wind against him which made him dawdle or perhaps something out at sea which had caught his attention. He passed him and with his long strides soon left him behind. Now no one was visible ahead between him and the farthest shelter which was the limit of his beat.
Considering the matter afterwards he decided that it was instinct, the instinct of a shrewd policeman, which made him examine the last shelter by the light of his torch instead of turning back gratefully to have the wind behind him. He saw the thing at once, of course. Someone asleep, he decided, and approached to give the sleeper a kindly shake and advice to go home. His hand was stretched out to do this when he realized with sudden mounting nausea that it was useless. The man on the shelter seat could not be woken. Or what was left of the man.
Sit well’s various realizations came one after another or simultaneously—he could never decide which, or in what order. He realized that the dead body before him was that of the man with staring eyes whom he had passed less than an hour ago. He realized that the top of his cranium was a bloody pulp. He saw a heavy hammer lying beside the man’s feet which was presumably the weapon that had killed him. Above all, he realized with a kind of sick jubilation that he had come at last on an important crime.
For a few moments he stood looking down. The man had not slumped to the ground but was still in a huddled sitting posture, his head forward as though he were exhibiting the ghastly evidence of his smashed skull. His hands were still in the pockets of his raincoat. He appeared to have been struck suddenly and powerfully, perhaps while he was sleeping.
Action, thought Sitwell. Instant action—but what? He must not leave this, even for a moment. Yet he must inform the station at once. He must not touch anything here, or allow it to be touched. He was not perturbed by any doubt as to whether the man was dead—it was only too obvious. But what was he to do?
At that moment he saw someone coming from the direction in which he had himself approached. It was the little muffled up man he had passed a few minutes earlier.
Sitwell stepped out and stopped him before he came too near.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Would you be kind enough to make a telephone call for me? There’s a box at the corner of the street over there.”
The muffled figure nodded.
“Would you ring the police station, Selby 2222, and tell them to send a car down here immediately?”
The muffled one seemed to hesitate as though expecti
ng more information than this.
“Tell them that someone is dead,” said Sitwell.
That was enough. The muffled figure hurried away.
Now, thought Sitwell, alone with his grisly find, I shall be able to give the exact information they always require. I passed this man at precisely …
He examined his watch. It was now 10.55 so it would be safe to give the time of his meeting with the man with the staring eyes as 9.40. Better make it 9.42—sounded more accurate. He made a note of that.
The man had then taken this direction, walking as though he was keeping himself under control. How had Sitwell known he had been drinking? He could only say he got that impression from the man’s eyes when he had been standing there, having just come from the streets of the town.
Sitwell saw delightedly that he would also be able to supply precise information about the people he had met as he approached the shelter. Mr Lobbin he could certainly identify. ‘Lobbin’ he wrote. Then he remembered the man and woman. He would be able to demonstrate his keen powers of observation over that—the woman’s large feet and mannish air. Would he be able to identify them if he saw them again? He thought so. Certainly if they were together.
What about those he had met during his earlier walk past this very shelter? He would carefully recall who they were. But his own movements, he thought, would fix the time of the murder to within an hour—it must have been committed between 9.50 say, and 10.40.
This was all very satisfactory. He would make an excellent witness when the murderer was eventually on trial and in the meantime his account to the CID men would surprise them by its accuracy. He began to see himself out of uniform almost immediately.
But suppose that little man did not phone? No one else might pass this way tonight and he dare not leave the corpse. Perhaps he could stop a car? Yes, that would be his move. Stop the first car that came by and ask it to take a report to the station.
It was soon obvious, however, that his messenger had fulfilled his function, for a police car drew up and Detective Inspector John Moore came towards him.