Mr. Zero

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Mass of stuff-mostly irrelevant, I should say. They haven’t had time to go through it all yet, but from what Brook tells me there’s not much doubt that Colesborough was a most complete wrong ’un-had been for years-brought up to it by his old ruffian of a father. It seems that the old man went off the deep end at being given a baronetage instead of the barony he had set his heart on. There’s a packet of letters about it, all written to the son, saying he’d get his own back-score the Government off-score the country off. The man must have been insane. Francis Colesborough too for that matter. That’s proved by his keeping the letters. Incredible, isn’t it?”

  “Most astonishing,” said Mr. Brewster in his prim voice.

  “The old man’s been dead fifteen years, but Colesborough kept the letters. It’s astonishing how people do keep things. Colesborough kept some pretty compromising stuff. Brook showed me a scheme of sabotage which would have paralyzed production in every factory in the country. It was headed ‘To be applied in case of Emergency A.’ Nice stuff to find in the safe of a man who held big government contracts! It seems to me that Mr. Zero deserves a public vote of thanks instead of the hanging he’ll get when they catch him.”

  Mr. Brewster coughed again.

  “Is there nothing in the safe that would give a clue as to his identity?”

  “They haven’t come across anything yet,” said Montagu Lushington. He gave a heavy sigh. “It’s a bad business. I’m afraid they’ll arrest Algy Somers.”

  Mr. Brewster made a shocked sound.

  “Oh, surely not, sir!”

  “If I felt sure of that, or of anything else in this case, I should sleep better tonight.”

  The Home Secretary was driving his own car. He looked straight ahead along the dark road and saw no end to it.

  “Did they find that paper in the safe, sir?” said Mr. Brewster.

  Montagu Lushington came back from a long way off. He had been thinking that they would probably arrest Algy tonight, and if not tonight then certainly tomorrow, unless something turned up to incriminate someone else. And if Algy were arrested, he intended to place his own resignation in the hands of the Prime Minister.

  He said, “What paper?” and Mr. Brewster explained.

  “The one you missed at Wellings, sir. I thought it might have turned up. You said Lady Colesborough had confessed to taking it, and I thought-”

  “You made a mistake then. I certainly did not tell you that Lady Colesborough had taken the paper.”

  “It must have been somebody else,” said Mr. Brewster in a distressed voice, “but I really can’t think who. Somers perhaps. Yes, now I come to think of it, I believe it was Somers.”

  Montagu Lushington laughed impatiently.

  “It doesn’t matter in the least, nor does the paper-now. What mattered was the list of suspected agents which was attached to the memorandum. Once Colesborough and his organization had seen that list and knew which of their men had come under suspicion, they could warn them, change them, substitute others. That was what mattered. Once Zero or Colesborough had seen the paper, the cat was out of the bag. They wouldn’t keep the paper-they wouldn’t want it.”

  “Dear me-I’d no idea,” said Mr. Brewster.

  “Nobody had,” said Montagu Lushington drily. “The fewer people who knew the better. I was keeping the information under my hat until the raid was over.”

  “The raid?” Mr. Brewster spoke in a tone of surprise.

  “Oh, it didn’t come off. It wasn’t worth while. The birds would have flown.”

  Mr. Brewster said, “Dear me!”

  Whilst the Home Secretary was driving towards Railing, Inspector Boyce was receiving a report from the smart young constable whom he had sent to make enquiries at the Hand and Flower.

  “Sturrock was quite well known there, sir-regular customer-used to drop in in his off time and play a game of billiards. But he didn’t play this afternoon. He didn’t stay very long.”

  “What did he do?”

  Collins looked chagrined.

  “Well, I don’t know that he did anything, sir.”

  “Did he use the telephone?”

  “Well, sir, they don’t know, and that’s the truth of it. He might have done, but there’s no one can say for sure. The telephone-box isn’t in the hall any longer. They used to have it there, but they’ve moved it to a sort of recess outside the smoke-room. Mr. Rudge, the proprietor, says he met Sturrock coming along the passage to the smoke-room. They had a bit of a chat-Mr. Rudge says about nothing in particular, but if the truth was known, I expect it was Sir Francis Colesborough’s murder they were talking about, Mr. Rudge not being one to miss a chance like that, if you don’t mind my saying so, nor I shouldn’t be surprised if they’d stood there for the best part of half an hour. Mr. Rudge doesn’t say that. All he says is they had a bit of a chat, and Sturrock went into the smoke-room to have a look at the papers. And that’s all I got, sir.

  “What about the exchange?”

  “There were half a dozen calls put through from the hotel in the course of the afternoon. I spoke to the young lady on duty, and that’s all she could tell me. She doesn’t remember any of the numbers that were asked for-said she’d have a nervous breakdown if she was to start trying to remember all the calls she put through in a day. A bit off-hand, if you know what I mean.” Collins frowned. Off-hand and worse, that’s what she’d been. One of the kind that wants taking down a peg or two. He wouldn’t mind having a shot at it himself. Bluest eyes he’d ever seen.

  “Well, that doesn’t get us any farther,” said Inspector Boyce.

  XXXII

  The Chief Constable had departed. Mr. Brook had departed. The contents of the safe had been removed. Sturrock’s body had been removed. Inspector Boyce had retired from the scene. To all outward appearance it might have been any Sunday evening at Cole Lester with the butler off duty and William taking his place a thought unhandily.

  “Actually,” as Algy said to Gay-“actually, my dear, the eye of the police is very much upon us. There’s a young-fellow-my-lad hanging round the place to see that I don’t take the Bentley out and forget to bring it back, and there’s a smart police pup in the lane with a motor-bike all ready to follow me if I do. And William is going around like a cat on hot bricks looking at me out of the tail of his eye. I think he’s thrilled at the idea of being at such close quarters with a murderer, but every now and then he gets an agonized feeling that I may have an urge to add him to the bag.”

  Gay stamped her foot and said, “I wish you wouldn’t!”

  She had come down to look for Algy and had come upon him in the study.

  Algy laughed and she flashed into anger.

  “I can’t think why we go on talking about it, and I can’t think why we’re in this horrible room! It simply reeks of policemen!”

  Algy really laughed this time. The other had been a pretense.

  “What do policemen reek of?” he enquired from the depths of the largest chair.

  “Red tape and sealing-wax!” snapped Gay.

  Algy looked at her between half-closed lids. The room, purged of the police force, was pleasant enough. The Inspector had well and truly tended the fire, which now glowed like a sunset and diffused a most comforting warmth. There was a pleasant light from a tall lamp behind the chair. It fell on Gay, on the bright colour which anger had brought to her cheeks, on the shadows under her eyes. He thought she had been crying. He thought perhaps her eyelashes were still wet. He thought that perhaps he would never see her again. And he had an overwhelming desire to bid this moment stay, to halt it here, between the past and the future, between today and tomorrow, between the moment that had slipped from them and the moment that might never be for them at all. His heart said “Stay,” and it took him all he knew to keep his tongue still upon the word. He thought, “I love her,” and thought how strange it was to feel this deep stab of triumph and pain. He thought, “She loves me too,” and the triumph rushed up in him like a singing
flame and consumed the pain. But he hadn’t moved. The big chair held a lazy, lounging young man looking with half-closed eyes at an angry, pretty girl.

  The sight exasperated Gay, who was only too eager to be exasperated. If she could be really furious with Algy, everything wouldn’t hurt so much. It was when she was sorry for him, when she wanted to put her arms round him and keep him safe, that the pain at her heart became almost unendurable. “Only you’ve got to endure it-you’ve got to-you’ve got to.” And if they sent Algy to prison, she would have to bear it for years, and years, and years. She didn’t get any farther than Algy being sent to prison. She wouldn’t get any farther than that. There are things you mustn’t look at even for a moment, because they are too dreadful to be borne. Other people had to bear them, but not you. Things like that couldn’t possibly happen to you. Don’t look. Shut your eyes. Push them away, and bang, and bolt, and bar the door upon them. Anger is a great help when you are trying to bang that sort of door.

  And then all at once such a little thing betrayed them both. Gay saw Algy looking at her. He didn’t look lazy any more. His eyes were open and he was looking at her as if he loved her with all his heart, and as if he was saying goodbye-to love, to her, to everything. It was only for a moment, but that moment broke her anger and her pride, and very nearly broke her heart. She came over to the chair with a rush and went down on her knees by it, leaning to him across the arm, her hands holding it, her voice breaking on his name.

  “Algy!”

  It was no good. They had lost their balance, and when you have lost your balance you catch at anything or anyone. These two caught at one another, held desperately together across the arm of the chair, kissed desperately as if there were no other time but this in which to kiss, to love, to cling together-a time quick with anguish, quick with joy.

  It passed, but it left them in a new country. They drew back, still holding hands, looking at one another and at this place to which they had come with stumbling, half-unwilling feet. Double pain for both, and a double load to carry, double foreboding, double fear, and a frowning barrier between them and the double joy which would have made it all worth while. Yet when Algy said, “I didn’t mean to let you know,” Gay knew just how unendurable that would have been. She said so in a rush of words,

  “Horrible of you! I’d have died. I felt as if I was going to-when you said-they were going to arrest you.”

  “But, darling, you must have known that I did care.”

  “I couldn’t-I didn’t! How could I? You were being completely strong and silent. Oh, darling, wouldn’t it be lovely if Sylvia had never been born, and if there weren’t any police?”

  Algy kissed her, and said he didn’t follow.

  “Dull!” said Gay. “If Sylvia hadn’t been born she wouldn’t have married Francis Colesborough, and if she hadn’t, I shouldn’t have asked you to lend me your car, and we shouldn’t have come hurtling down here in the middle of the night and getting mixed up in Francis being murdered. There wouldn’t have been any murder, and even if there had been, it wouldn’t have mattered if there hadn’t been any police.”

  After which lucid explanations she put her head down on his shoulder and found it comforting.

  XXXIII

  Mr. Zero opened the door of his room and came out upon a dimly lighted corridor. The light was at the far end, so that if anyone had been watching they would probably not have seen him, and they certainly would not have caught the slightest sound. The pile of the carpet was deep, and Mr. Zero’s movements were extremely quiet and controlled. The hour being a quarter before three in the morning, there was no one watching. The house slept a deep, safe, comfortable sleep. No one waked, no one stirred, no one saw Mr. Zero descend the stair and cross the dark hall below.

  He came out of the hall into a room at the back of the house. There was no light there. He groped his way to the window and unlatched it. Setting down a small attaché case which he had been holding, he put both hands to the window and raised the sash. He picked up the attaché case, climbed out, and drew the window gently down again to about an inch from the sill. Then he took a torch from his pocket and found his way round the house and down a drive. Coming out upon the road, he increased his pace and walked rapidly away into the dark.

  About twenty minutes later he came to the place he was bound for, a deep pond lying a little way off the road. The night was still. The water gleamed faintly under the open sky.

  Mr. Zero bent to his case, took something out of it, and straightened up. His arm swung, and the something went spinning through the air to fall with a splash in the deepest part of the pond.

  Mr. Zero shut his attaché case and retraced his steps toward the road. There was a gate to be climbed, and just as he was getting over it a car came roaring down the hill. With the gate on the outer side of a very sharp bend, the car seemed to be coming straight at him. He had time to jump down from the gate with his case in his hand, but the lights caught him before he could turn away or throw up an arm to screen his face. A murderous spasm of anger shook him. The car swung to the bend and was gone. The tail-light showed its red spark and disappeared. Someone who was out late and was in a hurry to get home, damn him.

  But five minutes later Mr. Zero was quite comfortable in his mind again. The fellow was probably a returning roisterer, and must anyhow have had enough to do to negotiate that extremely awkward bend at the really reckless pace he had been making. People had no business to drive like that, but in this instance there were mitigating circumstances. If he had been going as slowly as he should have been, his headlights would have given Mr. Zero a more protracted publicity, and Mr. Zero passionately desired privacy. For the rest of the return journey he had it.

  In less than half an hour he was in bed again, and long before the clock struck four he was asleep. What was there to keep him awake? The letters that named him were burned and their frail ash scattered. The police had Francis Colesborough’s pistols and they were welcome to them. The silencer was at the bottom of a most deep, convenient pond. Mr. Zero slept in peace.

  The car which had taken the bend with the ease and speed of long practice continued upon its way. Dr. Hammond had been out all day and most of the night and he was in a hurry to get home. When he had put away his car and locked the garage door he went through into the house, walking on tiptoe, because he always hoped that Judith wouldn’t wake.

  But while he was getting out of his coat she was half way down the stair in her blue dressing-gown, with her black hair flying, and one cheek scarlet where it had been pressed against the pillow.

  “My poor child-I thought you were never coming. Soup in the dining-room-come along and have some at once.”

  Jim Hammond grinned.

  “You’re an officious woman, Ju. Why can’t you stay quiet in your bed instead of flying up like a jack-in-the-box? Can’t trust me to find my way to the dining-room, can you?”

  She linked her arm in his and pulled him along.

  “Why are you so late?”

  “Because the Meaker baby was. Ten pound boy-hideous-healthy-and they’re all as pleased as Punch. Ju, get off to bed!”

  “I’d much rather talk to you while you have your sandwiches.”

  The dining-room was warm and bright, the sandwiches were good, and the soup was hot. Dr. Hammond experienced the tired man’s inclination to stay where he was and not bother about going to bed. When Judith drove him he snapped at her, yet presently he interrupted his undressing to wander into her room.

  “Funny thing happened when I was coming home. You know Hangman’s Corner? Well, I came up to it pretty fast-”

  “And some day you’ll get into trouble, my child,” said Judith, sitting up in bed.

  “Don’t interrupt, woman! I’m an extremely careful driver. Where was I?”

  “At Hangman’s Corner. And I do wish they’d call it something else.”

  “They won’t because of the pond. Well, I was coming down over the hill, and the headlights p
icked up a man who was getting over the gate. What do you suppose he was doing there at that hour of the night?”

  “Going to Hangman’s Pond or coming away from it, I should say. That gate doesn’t lead anywhere else.”

  “He was coming away,” said Dr. Hammond-“getting back over the gate into the road-and he looked scared to blazes.”

  “I don’t wonder. He probably thought you were going to run him down gate and all.”

  Dr. Hammond yawned.

  “Funny thing is I thought I’d seen his face before, only I can’t think where.”

  He drifted out of the room, and made short work of getting into his pyjamas, returning to switch out the light and announce as he got into bed,

  “If anyone else thinks of having twins, tell ’em to drown ’em. Night, Ju.”

  Yet twenty minutes later his head came up from the pillow with a jerk. Judith Hammond, wooing a dream in which the Meaker baby was hers, felt justly annoyed at being not only awakened but shaken.

  “Ju, I know who that fellow was.”

  “What fellow?” said Judith, half cross and half forlorn. Perhaps she and Jim would never have a child. Perhaps-

  Jim Hammond stopped shaking her to thump the bedclothes triumphantly.

  “The fellow I saw getting over the gate. What a damned extraordinary thing!”

  XXXIV

  But, darling, you can’t marry him, so what’s the good of saying you’re engaged?”

  “I’m going to marry him,” said Gay with a fighting sparkle in her eyes.

  She and Sylvia were in the Parlour, Sylvia in an easy chair, and Gay on her knees before a reluctant fire. She gave it a vicious poke and repeated firmly,

  “I’m going to marry him.”

  Sylvia leaned forward.

  “But, darling, how can you? I mean, you can’t marry him if he shot Francis, because they’ll hang him, won’t they? Besides we are cousins-aren’t we, and I don’t think it would be at all nice.”