Death and the Visiting Fireman

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘And all this has come out now,’ Fremitt said.

  ‘Come out. It’s been dragged out, dragged open, and dragged through. But that big great nose of his has got some uses besides poking into and prying out of. It can get in the way of seeing things it doesn’t want seen all right. I’ve no complaints.’

  Peter came in with the pipe and a packet of tobacco.

  ‘Saw Mr Schlemberger coming up the road,’ he said.

  ‘Schlemberger,’ said Wemyss. ‘Was he alone? Which way was he going? Why didn’t you tell somebody sooner?’

  ‘I told you straight away,’ Peter said. ‘And anyhow if you want to know anything about him he’s just come into the hall.’

  Wemyss leapt up, knocking down his chair, and ran across to the door.

  ‘The boy’s right,’ he called from the hall. ‘Schlemberger, I say, Schlemberger.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Schlemberger’s distant voice.

  ‘Er, can you spare a moment?’

  ‘Sure, if you must. Only I’ve got to get my grip packed.’

  ‘Packed?’

  ‘Yeah, that guy Parker said I could go at last. I’ve hired an automobile and I’m off in a few minutes.’

  ‘Oh, I see, he’s let you go up for the day, has he?’

  ‘No, he’s through with me, I guess. He did a lot of apologizing and Anglo-American friendship stuff and said I was in the clear.’

  ‘You mean he doesn’t suspect you any longer?’

  ‘Guess not.’

  Schlemberger’s voice still from half-way up the stairs. In the dining-room ears strained to catch every word.

  ‘Is he going to make an arrest, then?’

  ‘I asked him about that, but he didn’t give. Still I saw the major going in to see him just as I left, he may have made him change his mind.’

  In the dining-room eyes turn to the major.

  ‘So you did ...’Daisy began.

  ‘Ssh,’ said Major Mortenson, ‘I want to hear what Schlemberger’s saying.’ ‘But the major’s been here for some time,’ Wemyss said.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been fixing my car and everything,’ Schlemberger called back. ‘I’m off as soon as they’ve filled up with gas.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So if you’ll pardon me I’ve got to get all set.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Will I see you before you go?’

  ‘Sure, sure. I was going to pop my head around the door of the dining-room and bid the folks au revoir.’

  ‘I’ll be seeing you then.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Wemyss came back into the room. Disconsolate.

  ‘You heard all that, I expect,’ he said.

  ‘We did,’ said Daisy. T was just taking the major to task for not telling us he’d been peaching to Nosey Parker.’

  ‘Merely a matter of business I had to discuss with him,’ the major said. T didn’t know Joe here was practically a free man and I wanted to ask the inspector to pass on a message about the horse. Felt responsible, that’s all.’

  ‘And you didn’t like to mention it, I suppose,’ Kristen said.

  ‘To tell you the truth, I did not,’ the major said. ‘After Daisy’s air of mystery and sub rosa hints I preferred not to mention the matter.’

  ‘But didn’t Inspector Parker tell you he wasn’t holding Joe?’ said Fremitt.

  ‘As a matter of fact in the end I simply left a message,’ the major said. ‘I was asked to wait and I hate kicking my heels in police stations and places like that. So I just told them I’d like a word with the inspector when he had a moment. That was why I didn’t bother to mention my visit.’

  ‘It looks as if the inspector’s got your message, colonel,’ said Joe. ‘Here he comes. Mind if I faint.’

  But Schlemberger came into the room instead.

  A slightly shamefaced air.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose you’ve heard the good news. You’re done with Foster P. I’m here to say good-bye and good luck to you all. It’s been difficult times, but I’ve made some very fine friendships, very fine.’

  ‘I’m only sorry you became involved with us in such an unsavoury business,’ Smithers said.

  He crossed the room and shook hands. Schlemberger leant towards him and said quietly:

  ‘That inspector said they wouldn’t be “taking further steps”.’

  ‘I hoped as much,’ Smithers said.

  Schlemberger went on round the group. An earnest handshake for each person.

  When he came to Joe he said:

  ‘The inspector told me I’d find you here, Joe. I certainly am pleased it turned out this way.’

  ‘I’m glad it wasn’t you that turned out to be the one,’ Joe said. ‘I don’t know that I’d be pleased whoever it turned out to be. But I’m glad it wasn’t you all the same.’

  ‘Guess so,’ said Schlemberger.

  A modest glance at the ground. The curate facing the facts of life.

  ‘Well,’ he added, ‘I think I hear my cab. Guess it’s good-bye. The conference will be over pretty soon. I’ll be on my way back to the States. Well, good-bye.’

  He smiled, looked round the room once, and went out.

  Kristen and Joe crossed to the window and stood looking out.

  ‘He’s gone,’ said Kristen.

  They heard the sound of the car’s engine die away.

  ‘Of course, the fellow was never really, as you might put it, in the running,’ said the major.

  ‘You know,’ Kristen said, ‘he might be still. Give him enough rope. I wouldn’t put that past the inspector.’

  ‘I can’t see that there would be a great deal to gain by such a manoeuvre,’ said Smithers. ‘Frankly I’m glad to see at least one person’s innocence established.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Kristen. ‘You’re right really. Good luck to him.’

  ‘Only it makes the circle that much tighter,’ Wemyss said.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I was thinking,’ Joe said, ‘that all that about enough rope might be more made for me than for him. Where’s Nosey poked himself into now? I thought he was coming in to have a cosy little chat. Like afternoon tea with a boa constrictor.’

  ‘You didn’t lose your voice in all those nights in the open then, Joe,’ said the inspector.

  The door briskly opened.

  ‘Speaking out of turn again,’ said Joe. ‘I think I’ll have to go and be one of those monks.’

  Inspector Parker laughed.

  ‘I was in charge of a petty thieving case in a monastery once,’ he said. ‘It was the gardener, as a matter of fact. But let me tell you that sort of life wouldn’t suit you at all. Pretty long hours they do. And some pretty strict rules. Some very interesting things I learnt over that little job.’

  The nose wriggled. Satisfaction.

  ‘I came up early’, he went on, ‘because I wanted to catch you all before you went out. I’ve more questions to ask I’m afraid. I shall want to see you all in turn, with the exception of you, major, and you, Joe, of course. Mr Smithers, if you’re not busy I think I might as well see you first.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Smithers.

  ‘I’ve laid on that little office again,’ Inspector Parker said as they left the room. ‘I don’t know what work they do here, there never seems to be anyone using it.’

  ‘It certainly looked a little neglected last time I was in there,’ Smithers said.

  ‘And when was that?’

  The inspector was walking half a pace ahead of Smithers. He did not turn to ask the question. Smithers looked at him hard before answering.

  An inscrutable neck.

  ‘I had occasion to put something in the hotel safe the other day,’ Smithers said.

  Inspector Parker opened the door of the little room. A constable sitting in the corner stood up.

  ‘What was that you were hiding away?’ the inspector asked.

  Smithers did not reply.

  ‘Oh, I forgot,’ said the inspector. ‘No questi
ons outside the strict limits of the inquiry. Idle curiosity not encouraged. Never mind, I’ve plenty to ask within my duties. Shall we sit down?’

  He motioned Smithers to the swivel chair on the far side of the table. Smithers sat down. The chair, which was padded with rubbed leather, red in the highlights, black from age elsewhere, creaked ominously. Smithers put out a hand and steadied himself against the table. He found dust clinging to his fingers.

  ‘Terribly stuffy in here,’ the inspector said.

  He pushed at the window. It did not budge.

  ‘Jenkins, see if you can open this damned thing,’ he said.

  ‘We can’t three of us sit in here without a breath of air.’

  The constable put down his notebook and pencil and went across to the window. He tugged and heaved at it without success. Sweat glinted on the back of his neck.

  The inspector walked up and down a strip of carpet without talking. At the end of each turn he glanced at Constable Jenkins.

  ‘If the heat doesn’t inconvenience you,’ Smithers said, ‘I’m quite prepared to put up with it. I’ve forced enough frowsty fifth-formers to endure a little fresh air in my time, I deserve to feel the boot on the other foot.’

  ‘No, it’s not good enough,’ said the inspector. ‘I may be stuck in this place all morning. I’ll fall asleep if nothing’s done about the atmosphere. It’s a terribly hot morning.’

  Constable Jenkins grunted as he heaved at the hooks of the bottom frame of the window.

  ‘It certainly looks as if it will get sultry,’ Smithers said.

  The inspector took two more turns.

  ‘Go and get some help, Jenkins,’ he said.

  ‘I think I shifted it a little then, sir,’ said Jenkins.

  He heaved and grunted again.

  Suddenly the window shot up.

  ‘That’s a bit better,’ Inspector Parker said. ‘Don’t bother about the top. Let’s get started.’

  The constable wiped his grimy hands on his trouser legs and returned to his corner chair. The inspector stood with his back to the window looking down at Smithers. He held his hands in an attitude of prayer in front of his face and flapped them apart from the wrists just catching the tip of his nose each time the fingers came together.

  ‘Let me put to you a question I asked almost at the beginning of this inquiry,’ he said. ‘One which you singularly failed to answer.’

  ‘I did my best according to my lights,’ said Smithers.

  ‘Hm.’

  The inspector looked gloomily down at Smithers. A big fly buzzed past him into the room and circled slowly round the dusty lampshade. When it had completed the second circuit, he said:

  ‘Are you prepared to tell me what you have observed about some of your companions?’

  ‘I won’t answer “No” to that,’ Smithers said. ‘I have seen a good deal more of them since we first met. There We some things I think I could say about some of them without feeling I was romancing in an important matter.’

  ‘Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.’

  The inspector took a pace forward, grasped one of the three relegated dining chairs, swung it round, and sat on it back to front.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘some of the people I have to deal with in this case are tricky customers. Of course, I’ve dealt with tricky ones before, but these need a lot of pinning down. It’s like direction finding for a plane. I was in R.A.F. Intelligence in the war, you know, had to deal with a bit of bother at a direction finding station once. I learnt a thing or two about it. You have one listening post at say Point A. It gets a signal from a plane. But it can only tell you that it’s somewhere along a beam from the post to the plane. You have to get another listening post fairly far away to get the signal as well and plot its beam before you can do a spot of calculating and tell the pilot where he is.’

  Smithers shifted in his chair. The leather was sticking to his clothes in the heat. The bluebottle left the lampshade and began flying round the inspector’s head.

  ‘It’s like that with this business,’ he went on, ‘except that there’s only one listening post, my own, that I can trust completely. So I have to get as many fixes as I can to hope to know what one or two of the people I’m looking into are playing at.’

  ‘You’ve had plenty of reports, I should imagine,’ said Smithers.

  ‘Yes, but they generally give answers pretty far removed from my own suppositions. Take Miss Miller, for instance. Here’s a question about her I want answering. I’ve been supplied with a good deal of information on it directly and indirectly. Most of it flatly contradictory.’

  Smithers undid the button of his coat.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘It’s this: how intelligent is she? Just that. But you should hear the answers I’ve had.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. Miss Miller contrives I think to be both exceptionally acute and unusually vague. It depends how things are presented to her. If it is to do with anything she apprehends through her senses you can rely on her to hit the nail on the head every time. On the other hand she doesn’t manage reasoning.’

  ‘I see,’ said the inspector.

  He sat silent as if trying out a hypothesis.

  ‘More or less my impression,’ he said. ‘Though you put it very strikingly.’

  There was a low growl of thunder.

  Inspector Parker got up and looked out of the window.

  ‘It’s clouded over,’ he said. ‘There isn’t a breath of fresh air.’

  He wheeled round.

  ‘Wemyss has quarrelled with the Kett, hasn’t he?’ he said.

  ‘The Kett?’

  ‘Miss Kett, the film girl. It’s what the publicity people call her. A gimmick. I’ve been into her background. But I asked you a question.’

  ‘I expect most of your listening posts report the same thing. Relations have been publicly strained.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Come.’

  The inspector swiped at the big fly which swerved slowly and avoided the blow.

  ‘Come, don’t let’s start that again. You’ve had several confidential talks with the Kett.’

  ‘Miss Kett told me she was interested in the history of Winchester.’

  ‘No more to say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I suppose you know that you’re the trickiest of the lot?’

  ‘I act on perfectly consistent principles.’

  ‘Exactly. I can deal with the human, but... You ought to hear what some of them have said about you.’

  ‘I’m glad I haven’t.’

  The bluebottle buzzed towards a tattered flypaper. And swerved away.

  Constable Jenkins took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead.

  ‘What was the relationship between Hamyadis, the Kett, and young Wemyss?’ said the inspector.

  ‘From what I have gathered recently she was encouraging Wemyss in order to reinstate herself with Hamyadis.’

  ‘That’s better. She’s quite bright actually, isn’t she?’

  ‘More so than you’d think at first.’

  ‘This moaning about illness, that’s an act, of course.’

  ‘There I cannot help you.’

  ‘Can’t you? I’m surprised. Is the major really interested in those horses?’

  ‘I think he goes to see that they’re being looked after almost every day. I suppose he won’t need to any longer. But I don’t think he shares Joe Dagg’s passion for them.’

  ‘Would you say of him that he is more head than heart?’

  ‘Allowing for the over-simplification, I would.’

  ‘Juries like simplicity.’

  ‘Yes, you and I have different ends in view. I have to weigh characters before I mould them. You look for something black and white you can put before a court during a morning’s hearing.’

  ‘You put me in a bad light. Would Fremitt climb out of his bedroom window dressed only in his
pyjamas?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve been interfering in this business, haven’t you?’

  ‘You put me in a bad fight. If I have heard or seen anything relevant to your investigation, I have told you about it.’

  ‘You’d be prepared to swear to those impressions of the scents you smelt in the coach house in a court of law?’

  ‘I would.’

  The fly landed on the flypaper, and flew off.

  ‘Would you be good enough to spend the morning in the inn . or nearby? I may want to see you again.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Thank you. And would you ask Miss Kett to see me?’

  Smithers got up. His clothes hung from him limply. There was another long growl of thunder.

  As he reached the door Inspector Parker said:

  ‘Look, if you tell me that scent business was so much nonsense, I promise I’ll do nothing about it.’

  Smithers turned.

  ‘But it wasn’t nonsense in the least,’ he said. ‘After all young Peter noticed it as well.’

  ‘There could be various explanations of that,’ the inspector said.

  He was prowling up and down the room again. Quickly. The movement of his body stirred the thick air. But the heavy breeze brought no coolness.

  ‘There’s suggestibility, I suppose,’ Smithers said. ‘But it’s a little far-fetched.’

  The inspector stopped dead.

  ‘There comes a time when perhaps you have to rely on the far-fetched,’ he said.

  He wriggled the tip of his nose. Prying.

  ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘that isn’t the only explanation I had in mind.’

  ‘I can think of nothing else,’ said Smithers.

  ‘No? Sit down again a minute, would you?’

  He pointed to the sticky chair Smithers had left. Smithers took it again.

  The bluebottle left the window pane where it had been silent since Smithers had begun to leave and flew round the room once more. It went so slowly that it seemed scarcely to have enough momentum to keep in flight. Its buzz was louder.

  ‘Let me suggest something really far-fetched,’ said the inspector.

  He came and rested his hands on the edge of the table near the place where the dusty black leather had rolled back from the corner. He leant over towards Smithers.

  Smithers took out his handkerchief and wiped the palms of his hands.