Close Quarters

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘By Jove,’ said Pollock. ‘Excuse my interrupting, sir. But that explains why the hat was so much less wet than the rest of the clothes. It was something I couldn’t understand at the time. If it had really been lying all night under a shower bath from the choked drain-pipe – it would have been pulpy with moisture – whereas, in fact, it was barely damp.’

  ‘Good,’ said Hazlerigg. ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘There’s just one snag,’ said Pollock, who seemed to have abandoned the role of carping critic and become even more enthusiastic about the theory than its begetter. ‘Even allowing what you say, wasn’t that note he pinned up rather a startling piece of forgery?’

  ‘I’m expecting a report on the handwriting from our experts; let’s defer judgment on that point until it arrives. A friendly visit to the Victoria and Albert seems to be the next move.’

  ‘In our official capacity?’

  ‘I think not. Mr. Begg doesn’t sound the sort of man who would respond to official questioning. No, we’ll wander in separately and see if anything crops up. Try not to look too like a policeman. You can play darts and engage the local talent in gossip whilst I will stand Mr. Begg a friendly drink and induce him to open to me the secrets of his flinty bosom. And talking about opening, when do they open in this confounded hole?’

  ‘Ten o’clock,’ said Pollock enthusiastically. ‘So I’m told.’

  Mr. Begg’s flinty bosom was proving an exceptionally resistant and tenacious tract.

  The proprietor of the Victoria and Albert was a huge man, who appeared at first sight to be as broad as he was long and was certainly as thick as he was broad. The expression on his face indicated that he had looked on life and found it hollow. Two hands of the size (and colour) of bronze warming pans rested negligently on the bar in front of him. Unlike young John Brophy he had proved neither an easy nor a fluent conversationalist.

  ‘Fine morning,’ said Hazlerigg. ‘Half a pint of bitter, please. Barney’s Badger Beer, I see. A fine nutty ale. An excellent choice.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I said I admire your choice of beer.’

  ‘Fat lot o’ choice,’ said Mr. Begg, exposing the remnant of his front teeth in a wintry smile. ‘They owns the place.’

  ‘Ah, I see. A tied house. Well, that’s the only way to get security these days. Perhaps you’ll have a drink yourself. It all goes to increase the profits of the company.’

  Mr. Begg, interpreting a drink as meaning an imperial pint, filled an enormous glass and emptied it at his customer’s expense, without mellowing perceptibly. Having exhausted the possibilities of the weather, Hazlerigg enlarged lightly on the coming football season.

  ‘Never watch the game,’ said Mr. Begg, ‘silly waste of time.’ The conversation languished. Hazlerigg paid for another round of drinks and introduced a political note. Mr. Begg expanded a little and condescended to explain, with imaginative detail, what he would do to a number of prominent public men if he had a chance. None of them, Hazlerigg felt, would have derived any pleasure from the treatment. Encouraged by this flow of soul, Hazlerigg bought a third pint for his host and touched on another favourite subject of the working classes, the iniquity of the police.

  There could be no doubt at all about the success of this move.

  Mr. Begg’s eye gleamed with a positive animation and he put down his beer half finished (a thing which he hadn’t done for several years) in order to explain fully to Hazlerigg his opinion of the Chief Constable of Melchester. Colonel Brabington, it will be remembered, had spoken in an unstinted way about Mr. Begg – sufficient to say that his was a paean of praise beside Mr. Begg’s opinion of Colonel Brabington.

  This was all to the good. But even on what was evidently his favourite subject the landlord displayed a curious reluctance to descend from the general to the particular. The police, Hazlerigg gathered, were scum. Further, they conspired to rob a man of his bread. But as to how they performed this robbery no details were forthcoming.

  ‘Make difficulties – about closing-time?’ suggested Hazlerigg. That, implied Mr. Begg, was putting it mildly.

  ‘Perjuring themselves, I suppose, and swearing your clock was ten minutes slow or five minutes fast, or something of that sort, eh?’

  But at the very mention of his clock, a change seemed to come over the landlord. Three pints of Barney’s Badger Beer were forgotten. The customary look of cold suspicion returned to Mr. Begg’s eye.

  ‘What’s wrong with my clock?’ he said. ‘It goes all right, doesn’t it – what’s wrong with it, then?’

  Hazlerigg hastened to assure him that his clock was perfectly right, as indeed at that moment it was.

  ‘It’s the best clock in Melchester,’ said Mr. Begg. ‘And set by time-signal on the wireless every blessed morning, see?’

  Hazlerigg saw. He had either to declare his identity and proceed to an official interlocutory, or withdraw. It was no consideration of Mr. Begg’s size or ferocity which dictated the latter course. Hazlerigg had subdued larger and more dangerous men, but out of the corner of his eye he could see that Pollock appeared to be in animated conversation with three habitués of the four-ale bar. This decided him. Finishing his ale, he bellowed across (it being one of his sovereign rules of life that the louder you say a thing the less attention people pay to it), ‘See you soon, chum. I’ll be at the Cock and Pye. Can’t stay there after twelve.’ Having, like a careful general, established his next base, he withdrew.

  Pollock, meanwhile, was playing darts. Not having any desire to win he was soaring to heights of brilliance which shocked even himself. He could do no wrong. Doubles came smoothly to his call. Trebles were legion. He defeated a market-gardener, the local champion, in four and a half minutes in two straight games and accepted half a pint of bitter.

  The market-gardener was shaken but not overwhelmed. He summoned his friends Sydney and Harry, and presently Pollock found himself partnered with Harry in a foursome. Any good outsider who played darts in the Victoria and Albert usually found himself paired with Harry before long. The man who could win with Harry on his side was a player indeed. Pollock resigned himself to defeat and won again. He accepted a further half-pint and, in honour bound, took the field again once more.

  This time Harry threw so badly – the majority of his darts failed to enter the board at all and were ducked by the scorer – that their opponents succeeded in scraping home. Pollock resigned the board to a second quartet, ordered pints for both his opponents, and retired with them into the chimney corner. He carried with him the full honours of war. All three men plainly regarded Pollock as the News of the World darts champion in disguise, and conversation was general and easy. Pollock felt that it was time to broach the real business of the meeting. Both of his opponents had been in the public bar on the Tuesday evening, and when Pollock described Parvin they recognised him at once. Pollock intimated that Parvin was a friend of his. Sydney volunteered the information that Parvin had come in “at about eight o’clock.” Pollock pressed him for the exact time, explaining that Parvin had promised to meet him at the cinema at five to eight, but had failed to do so. ‘He says he waited there till eight o’clock, but if he was here by eight he couldn’t have done, could he?’ Sydney agreed that he couldn’t have been in two places at once. The market-gardener gave it as his opinion that most Welshmen were liars.

  ‘Perhaps the clock was wrong,’ suggested Pollock delicately.

  He felt that he could not push the subject much further without appearing unnaturally inquisitive.

  Sydney grinned. ‘Better not let old Begg hear you say that. He’s touchy about his clock. Sets it by wireless.’ The market-gardener supported this, and Pollock accepted defeat. He rose regretfully to depart, when Harry, who had hitherto taken more interest in his beer than in the conversation, stopped him.

  ‘I can tell you one funny thing,’ he said. ‘I was here last Tuesday evening. I didn’t stop long because I was going on to the pictures myself. Very an
xious to see the newsreel. They told me it came on at twenty to seven. Well, I left here at twenty-five minutes to seven by that clock. Three minutes’ walk to the cinema, wouldn’t you say?’ (‘Three and a half,’ amended Sydney.) ‘Anyway, when I got there the ruddy thing was finished. It was ten minutes to. Either I’m a perishing loon-attick or that there perishing clock was ten minutes slow, for all his wireless time-signals.’

  ‘And that’s that,’ said Pollock to Hazlerigg five minutes later at the Cock and Pye. It was an unexpected break.’ Hazlerigg went for a telephone and spoke with the Melchester cinema. He was not away many minutes. When he came back he said in a particularly expressionless voice, ‘There was no irregularity in the running of the films last Tuesday. Each one started exactly to schedule. Find out the full name and address of that chap at the pub. We shall want him as a witness. I am going down to the station to swear a temporary warrant. You’d better meet me outside the Close in a quarter of an hour. We’re going to hold Parvin.’

  The half-hour after twelve beat out into the stifling air as Hazlerigg and Pollock re-entered the Close. The sunlight felt strong and pitiless. Both men were preoccupied with their thoughts.

  ‘Try his house first,’ grunted Hazlerigg. They passed up the garden path, and Pollock knocked on the door. There was no response, but they could hear inside the tiny sounds which indicate human occupation. Quick, quiet footsteps, and then the shutting of a door.

  ‘There’s someone in there,’ said Hazlerigg. ‘Knock again.’

  Pollock beat a loud and impatient tattoo. When he stopped the Close seemed unnaturally silent in the bright sunlight, as though it was listening. But now the noises inside the house had stopped.

  Hazlerigg was puzzled and uneasy. He stood for a moment swaying his great bulk backwards and forwards on his heels and contemplating the quiet little garden. Then he made up his mind. He turned and raised his stick. A man who had seemingly been devoting all his energy and attention to dipping the edge of the cathedral verge straightened his back and came up at a lumbering trot.

  ‘Go round the house, Gimblett, and watch the back doors and the windows. Shout if anyone tries to get out.’

  ‘Right, sir.’ The man disappeared purposefully. Pollock knocked again, and once more they paused to listen. The silence was unbroken.

  ‘I don’t like this a bit,’ said Hazlerigg. *We’ve simply got to get in.’ Stepping back a pace he swung his foot up, with the sole of the heavy shoe parallel to the face of the door and kicked. Once, twice, the third kick delivered in the same place, a fraction below the handle, carried away the flimsy lock, and the door caved in. Both men tumbled into the house. Pollock ran to open the back door. Gimblett had seen nobody. Rapidly they searched. Every room was empty.

  ‘Hiding upstairs,’ said Pollock. They went up with a rush. There were only four rooms, with no cover to speak of. They were all empty. Mercifully Pollock had an exceptionally keen nose. As they stood perplexed, in the upper passage, he caught the well-known smell, sweet and sour at once. ‘Gas turned on somewhere.’ For some reason he found himself whispering. ‘Back here, I think.’ They raced back to the front bedroom.

  ‘Look for the pipe,’ said Hazlerigg. ‘Quick.’

  It was Gimblett, that amateur plumber, who discovered the gas lead, which ran for a distance along the foot of the wainscoting and seemed to disappear into the wall.

  ‘Cupboard here somewhere,’ said Hazlerigg, groping with his fingers. It was really a very simple little deception, common to very old and very new dwellings, a cupboard set flush in the panelling of the wall. There was no time for subtlety. Hazlerigg picked up a chair, and using it clubwise broke in the upper panel. Six strong hands seized the ragged edge. A heave, and the door came bodily away. They choked on the thick concentrated wave of gas which hit them.

  It was a little clothes cupboard they saw, hung with a few shabby coats and dresses. And huddled up on the floor was Mrs. Parvin. Though unconscious, she still held in her tightly clenched fist the end of the bedroom gas-jet.

  ‘She meant it all right, didn’t she?’ said Hazlerigg grimly, as they made Mrs. Parvin comfortable on the bed. ‘Five minutes more and she’d have been away. She’ll be all right now, though.’

  Gimblett was dispatched for the doctor, and as the door dosed behind him Mrs. Parvin gasped, coughed violently, and tried to sit up. Then she saw the two policemen, and incongruously burst into tears.

  The minutes ticked slowly past, and Mrs. Parvin’s sobs grew less convulsive, but no word was spoken on either side until footsteps on the stairs announced the arrival of the constable and the doctor.

  Then Hazlerigg leant forward and said in his curiously deep and gentle voice: ‘Mrs. Parvin, listen to what I’m saying. That was a very stupid and wicked thing you tried to do just now. Will you believe me when I tell you – he wasn’t worth it?’

  ‘Are you going to arrest me?’

  ‘No,’ said Hazlerigg. ‘They’ll have to take you away to the hospital and look after you for a day or two, but that’s all – I promise you. And by the time you’re quite well again things will have straightened themselves out.’ Without shifting his gaze, and in the same tone of voice, he added, ‘Where’s your husband?’

  ‘He’s in the cathedral,’ said Mrs. Parvin listlessly. ‘You’ll not be able to touch him there.’

  Sanctuary, thought Pollock.

  Their mistake, as they realised afterwards, lay in taking the policeman with them. Parvin, apparently unsuspicious of trouble, was actually emerging from the west door as they crossed the lawn in front of it. Hazlerigg and Pollock alone, he might have overlooked. But Hazlerigg and Pollock advancing towards him with a uniformed constable in support provided too obvious a warning to be ignored. He turned and disappeared inside the cathedral.

  ‘More exercise,’ said Hazlerigg resignedly.

  The cavalcade broke into a trot. Pollock’s mind was still running on the medieval institution of Sanctuary. For all he knew it still existed, like Livery and Maintenance and the Lord’s Day Observance Act and other flotsam cast up by the old tide of law.

  They plunged into the cathedral, where everything was cool and dark. Ahead of them a door slammed. ‘There he goes.’ They clattered down the aisle and were brought up short in front of an iron-studded door. No flimsy structure this, to be kicked to pieces. Nine inches of oak and bolted on the inside. The policeman plunged futilely against it and succeeded in bruising his shoulder.

  ‘We shall need a locksmith to open that,’ said Hazlerigg. ‘I’m afraid we’re done.’

  ‘If you’re in a hurry,’ said Canon Bloss, appearing apparently from nowhere, ‘there is an alternative route to the clerestory.’ He spoke as calmly as though he were showing a party of visitors round the cathedral. ‘Through the vestry. Follow me.’ He sailed forward and the pursuit surged behind him. When they reached the canon’s vestry, Bloss took a ring of keys from his pocket and swung open a narrow door. ‘Straight up those steps and through the bell tower. The door is bolted on your side. So you really command both approaches to the clerestory. Be careful not to slip, won’t you. It’s a terrible place for a giddy head.’

  At this the constable looked appealingly at Hazlerigg, who said, ‘You stay and watch both doors in case he cuts back.’ Then he disappeared up the narrow winding stairs, with Pollock hard on his heels.

  When they reached the bell tower they could appreciate Canon Bloss’ sound grasp of strategy. Parvin, by going up the west front stairs, had delivered himself into their hands. He had either to return by the way he had come – and that was now guarded – or make the circle of the clerestory, a course which would inexorably bring him back to the bell tower. They had only, to bolt one door – done as soon as thought of – and sally out of the other. They opened the south door and stepped out. The clerestory ledge was wider than it had looked from below – perhaps an arm’s span in all. Pollock could have wished it were twice that. He had a fair head for heights. Hazlerigg, he knew,
was a mountaineer and sublimely unconscious of them. Eighty feet below, the floor of the south transept gleamed quietly up at them as the sun came pouring through the stained glass.

  ‘We must see him soon,’ thought Pollock. They had circled the south transept and were passing now, behind and above the huge tops of the biggest organ-pipes, the old ‘sixty-fours.’ The next turn would bring them out above the lady chapel. Hazlerigg, who was a few yards ahead, treading silently and confidently in his rubber-soled shoes, suddenly threw up his hand. Pollock stood still and held his breath. Immediately he stood still the ledge seemed to contract, and he wished he could go on again. Hazlerigg was edging softly round the next corner. Pollock crept after him.

  What he saw stopped him again in his tracks, and he stood as if turned into stone – the good rugged Melchester stone, which he instinctively clutched for support

  Parvin was poised on the narrow part of the triforium arch where it faced them, across the depth of the lady chapel. He was crouched forward, motionless, and at first sight it seemed that he was staring up into the roof. But his eyes were tight shut.

  He’s going to fall, thought Pollock. In a minute he’s going to throw himself off.