Close Quarters

by Michael Gilbert

  The second half, anyway, of Hazlerigg’s prediction was immediately proved false. They found awaiting them a chastened Inspector Palfrey. Parvin had been left in the charge of Inspector Palfrey at the police station, and it afforded the inspector very little pleasure to have to tell Hazlerigg that his prisoner had committed suicide in the charge-room by cutting his throat with the station-sergeant’s scissors.

  So that it was very late indeed – long after midnight – when Pollock and Hazlerigg finally got back to their hotel. Every star was hidden, but the storm delayed and the night was oppressive with the undischarged artillery.

  Pollock went straight to bed and tried to read himself to sleep with the seventh and dullest book of Wordsworth’s Excursion. He read till the words danced in front of his eyes:

  Memories – images …

  That shall not die and cannot be destroyed.

  He thought of Parvin.

  Hazlerigg had no intention of going to bed. He knew – none better – that so far he had failed, failed all along the line, and the realisation combined unpleasantly with the heaviness of the night and forbade any thought of sleep. He had, as Pollock had once pointed out, proved to his own satisfaction that a number of prime suspects were innocent. He had shown who hadn’t done the murder, but that was poor consolation. He had unearthed and exposed the rather pointless little manoeuvres of Vicar Choral Malthus. The most important discovery – the only important discovery – had been made by Trumpington and Prynne. Appledown the blackmailer! It was rather a staggering thought. And it supplied a strong motive, one of the oldest and strongest in the world. But the devil of it was it was a motive that would fit anyone. Canon Whyte’s words came back to him – “two, and perhaps three more people in the Close are being victimised.” But who were they? Mickie, the organist, for one. Hazlerigg felt that this was a good guess. It explained Mickie’s otherwise inexplicable agitation and his very dangerous secrecy. The thought of Canon Whyte brought Hazlerigg’s mind back again to Parvin. Poor little Parvin – what a beautiful, watertight case they had worked out against him. And now it looked as if the case and the prisoner had gone west at one blow. It was black undisguised defeat.

  And yet – and this was what maddened Hazlerigg – the whole answer was there, before his eyes, under his fingers. He knew it; he felt it. And for want of understanding he could not grasp it.

  Three lives gone; first Appledown, and then that boy – and now Parvin. Who was going to be next? ‘There must be no more of it,’ said Hazlerigg, and found he had spoken aloud.

  With a deep sigh which was equal parts weariness and disillusionment, he pulled out every paper connected with the case, stacked them on the table, drew up his chair, and started all over again.

  He didn’t skimp his work, and the long hand had gone round twice before he had done. He had many qualities which went to the making of a good police officer, but one above all others – a quality which was destined to raise him afterwards to the heights of his profession. Concentration. Tireless, relentless, implacable concentration. And yet something more than that. Selective concentration. “The essence of all police work is sound elimination.” And here there was so much that was superfluous. Carefully he recalled the essentials, and above all the three points at which, as he had told Pollock, he had first glimpsed the possibility of a controlling mind. Mickie’s ghost. And two voices. First the old, high tones of Mrs. Judd. “I’ve still got good hearing … I heard things … wicked things. Later that night. Much later. Footsteps creeping, doors creaking.” That was one voice. Then Prynne’s precise tones. “I saw a light go on in his front room and his shadow jerking about on the blind.” There was a key there.

  And the anonymous messages – what was their connection with the murder? He had outlined three possibilities to Pollock; there was, of course, a fourth. He had just seen it. Hazlerigg experienced a little tremor of excitement.

  He had once watched a water diviner – a ‘dowser’ he called himself – at work with his forked hazel rod. He had seen the man step quite listlessly on to a patch of gravel and then – the change. A tiny, almost imperceptible trembling of the stick. Then a quivering. Then a triumphant dip. Five minutes later they were digging the well.

  Hazlerigg was far from striking water yet, but he had felt the first magical tingling of an idea. Painstakingly he swept backwards and forwards from it. It was all there. Every word, every fact. He was sure of it. He had only to believe what he had seen and heard. The evidence of his eyes and ears – eyes and ears. The stick trembled, and then stopped. Hazlerigg repeated the words slowly to himself – ‘The evidence of eyes and ears.’

  And at that moment the idea was born. It came to life curiously with a quotation from Pater about “dumb inquiry over the relapse after death.” Hazlerigg whispered the well-known words to himself. ‘At last, far off, thin and vague … a passing light, a mere intangible external effect.’ The conviction was growing stronger now. ‘A dream that lingers a moment, retreating in the dawn,’ but this dream was going to stay, ‘a thing with faint hearing;’ that was it – one could feel the stick dipping strongly now – ‘faint memory, faint power of touch: a breath, a flame in the doorway, a feather in the wind.’

  The storm had passed for that night at least, and the stars were beginning to pale when Hazlerigg got stiffly to his feet, and rolled, almost with one motion, into his bed. And the great Melchester mystery was a mystery no longer.

  15

  THE THREADS ARE PICKED UP

  The following day was Saturday and it opened with an hour or two of mixed endeavour.

  ‘Go to Colonel Brophy’s house,’ said Hazlerigg, ‘and see if you can get hold of some specimens of John Brophy’s handwriting. I needn’t tell you to be tactful …’

  Pollock found himself, ten minutes later, in front of a big house on the outskirts of Melchester. It spoke of the retired military man from its regimented flower-beds and tightly shaven lawns to the inevitable relics of shikari which adorned the front hall. A schoolboy’s blue and white cap still hung from a peg in the hall beside the big Benares gong.

  Pollock was preparing his gentlest opening when the old colonel cut him short. ‘Ask what you like, sir! Turn the house upside down if it will assist you in any way whatsoever. Let’s get hold of this fellow and hang him. Letters? Yes, I’ve got most of what he ever wrote to me. Come in here.’

  He led the way into the study and opened a desk.

  ‘Here’s his last letter,’ he added.

  Pollock looked at it closely and got the greatest shock he had sustained in the case.

  There was absolutely no doubt about it at all.

  John Brophy was the writer of that last anonymous letter which the Dean had received.

  The colonel was looking over his shoulder.

  ‘He always signed himself J. B.,’ he explained. ‘He was in some respects rather an old-fashioned boy.’

  Forty years in the army had at least taught the colonel to discipline himself.

  Hazlerigg met Pollock by arrangement at the Mayflower Cafe, and inspected the letter before folding carefully away.

  ‘I’ve had a tussle,’ he said. ‘Bank officials. The usual sticky crowd. They seem to think that if an ordinary customer’s account is sacred, a clergyman’s must be doubly so. I had to talk for a quarter of an hour on the phone to their head office. Trunk call, too. It all goes on the rates.’

  After that they marched back to the Close, crossed the green, through the wicket-gate outside the late Appledown’s house, and a few minutes later they were talking to Biddy, Halliday’s housekeeper. Halliday and his sister were out, but Biddy proved unexpectedly enlightening.

  ‘Try to remember, please,’ said Hazlerigg, ‘on that night when you were standing in the hall with Mr. Halliday. Did you or Mr. Halliday actually go outside into the garden or into the porch?’

  Biddy, whose deafness appeared to vary in proportion as she was being “flustered” or not, at last opined that they had not gon
e out. Mr. Halliday had come out into the hall, and they had stood in the hall for a moment talking together, and then the Foxes had arrived.

  Hazlerigg stood for a moment, half in and half out of the front door. He turned his head to the right and looked into the stone- paved front court of the school, then to the left and into the front garden of the Appledown ménage. The pillar of the front porch, to which the famous note had been pinned, was clearly visible from where he stood. He seemed hardly to be listening to Biddy’s voluble explanations, and Pollock got the impression that he was simply waiting for something or somebody, an impression that was heightened when he caught the inspector glancing surreptitiously at his watch.

  ‘Nip across to the school and see if Dr. Smallhorn is in,’ he said to Pollock. ‘I’d like a word with him before lunch.’

  As Pollock departed on his errand the mellow cathedral bell embarked on a leisurely announcement of midday, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Hazlerigg turn to address a further remark to Biddy.

  It was only then, as he afterwards realised, that he got the first inkling of the truth for himself.

  Dr. Smallhorn, extracted from a Latin class, welcomed Pollock in his study. Hazlerigg joined them a minute or two later.

  ‘I have got to take you into my confidence to a very real degree. Dr. Smallhorn,’ said Hazlerigg, ‘and I want your promise that you will say nothing whatever to anyone of what I am now going to tell you. Not to anyone at all. Even to the boys. Mrs. Meadows will have to be taken into your confidence, but to a more limited extent.’

  ‘You may rely on me implicitly,’ said Dr. Smallhorn, his Adam’s apple giving a gratified bob.

  ‘First point, then. Supposing you found a boy in possession of something which you considered undesirable or dangerous – an—er—weapon or implement, or perhaps even reading matter of an undesirable nature – what would your reactions be? Apart, I mean, perhaps, from punishing the boy for possession of the forbidden property, would you consider yourself justified in “confiscating” (I believe that is the correct word) – in confiscating the article in question?’

  ‘I must confess,’ began Dr. Smallhorn, joining the tips of his fingers together in a way which had intimidated three generations of choristers, ‘that I fail to see the immediate pertinency of your question – but my answer is a most decided negative. I am not a believer in confiscation. Indeed, I fail to see that my status as a schoolmaster gives me any rights over the property of my pupils at all. I may be wrong. If the article in question was an undesirable one I should call on the boy to destroy it; if, on the other hand, it was, as you suggest, a dangerous toy or implement of some sort, then I would have it returned to the boy’s parents, who could take what action they wished in the matter.’

  ‘I see,’ said Hazlerigg. He ticked off an item in his notebook. ‘Now this is what I want you to do.’

  As he talked, Dr. Smallhorn’s amazement grew.

  ‘We’ve time to snatch some lunch before we see your uncle at two o’clock,’ said Hazlerigg. They had left the school and were strolling back along the western edge of the green. The oppressive heat made all exertion unpleasant. They had nearly reached the wicket-gate and were about to turn through it when something made the Chief Inspector pause. He glanced back sharply at Appledown’s cottage. In the prevailing stillness Pollock heard – and as he heard, saw – the front door closing sharply. Thoughtfully they retraced their steps, and a moment later were knocking at the (now fast-closed) door.

  There ensued a good deal of shuffling supported by a certain amount of grumbling and some ostentatious “noises off;” then the door was flung open and Artful blinked out at them. An overcoat, which appeared to have been hastily discarded, was lying over the back of a chair, and the end of a suitcase caught Pollock’s eye, sticking out through the curtains of the alcove and imperfectly concealed by them.

  ‘Flitting, eh?’

  Artful blinked, but said nothing.

  ‘Now you listen to me.’ The Chief Inspector’s bulk filled the tiny hall and his finger was an instrument of indictment which impaled the shabby figure in front of him.

  ‘Just you listen to me. I know all about you, and I can’t say I like much of it. You were living with your brother and you were living on your brother. You were in with him in all his precious schemes. That’s to say you had a share in the proceeds and you knew who it came from – don’t interrupt. You were an accessory after the fact to his dirty blackmailing business, and if it was worth it I’d charge you with it and send you up. I’m giving you the very slender benefit of the doubt, however, and assuming that though you knew who was paying the money you didn’t know why. I think your brother Daniel was too close for that.’

  Pollock perceived that this shaft had gone home.

  ‘But if you try to run away, I’ll take a chance on it and pull you in. See? And I’ll let you in on a little secret. It wouldn’t do you any good if you did decide to run. There are forty policemen sitting round the Close now. They’re almost holding hands. So stay put and stay happy.’

  Hazlerigg backed out, and Pollock followed. Artful appeared to have nothing to say, but his little red eyes winked fearfully.

  Back at the hotel a telegram was waiting for them. Pollock read it over Hazlerigg’s shoulder. It ran:

  Very interesting suggestion. Probably powdered rhodamine on a grease base. Letter follows by hand soonest.

  It was signed by a name so celebrated in the world of forensic science that even Pollock recognised it.

  ‘Parvin,’ said Hazlerigg, ‘has been our stumbling-block all along.’ They were sitting in the Dean’s study, and the inspector had just brought his two listeners up to date about the fate of the unhappy second verger.

  ‘Even though he is dead and we ought to think kindly of him, yet I find it difficult to forgive his unwarrantable intrusion into what might have been a simple case. What happened is this. Parvin was being blackmailed by Appledown. One of our head verger’s filthy little ten-shilling-a-week efforts, which I find so much more loathsome than grander larceny. Parvin dropped in that night, as we know, to see Appledown at about seven-forty. Why? Probably Tuesday was pay-day. At all events he goes up to the house – knocks and gets no answer. He’s a bit puzzled, but finally tries the door and finds it open. So he goes in. Looks into one or two of the rooms, including the kitchen, and soon discovers that there is nobody at home.’

  ‘But—’ began the Dean.

  ‘Here, wait a bit now—’ began Pollock.

  ‘He discovers,’ repeated Hazlerigg inexorably, ‘that there is nobody in. The dinner, I fancy, was uneaten on the plates, the clock ticking on the mantelpiece. But there was nobody at home.

  ‘He waits for a minute or two and then begins to get uneasy. The silence gets on his nerves. Remember, Appledown was a creature of habit as everyone has told us. Absolutely regular. Out every afternoon to cathedral at four o’clock, “regular as clockwork,” Artful told us. Back at a quarter to seven. Very unlikely to go out after that, and if he did, always left a note on the door. No – Parvin is badly worried. Particularly worried, because as far as he knows, if anything has happened to Appledown he will be the number one suspect. Blackmailer’s victim (I don’t suppose he knew he wasn’t the only one) and also next for promotion and so on. After a minute or two it gets too much for him, and he exits cautiously and pushes off home. He has a few words with his wife (Mrs. Judd, who saw him go out but was at dinner and missed his return, heard a man’s voice and jumped to the worst conclusions about Mrs. Parvin). Mrs. Parvin says, “Don’t worry, go and have a drink and forget about it.” Parvin pushes off to the V. and A. and has his drink. Happens to notice that Begg’s clock is ten minutes slow and only registers eight o’clock as he gets there; this fact being filed for future reference.’

  Pollock was following with breathless attention and doing some wild discarding from his previous hand.

  ‘Now that’s not conjecture,’ went on Hazlerigg. ‘I got it from
Mrs. Parvin in hospital this morning and missed lunch to do it. Once I heard she’d decided to talk I knew we’d get something, and I wasn’t disappointed. You see what it all means?’

  They were beginning to do so.

  ‘Parvin lied about seeing Appledown at a quarter to eight. He lied to save his own skin. Because he knew that we thought Appledown was alive at eight, and he had an alibi for eight o’clock. He was hoping against hope in the first place that no one had seen him go into the house at all. When Mrs. Judd firmly blew that particular gaff he had to improvise. If he told the truth and said that the house was quite empty then we should have – we must have – suspected the eight o’clock business straight away. We might quite likely even have thought that it was Parvin who had rigged it. He might have done, you know. It was physically possible, I mean.’

  ‘But was it not incredibly risky to lie about such a cardinal point?’ protested the Dean. ‘Wouldn’t it have been much safer in the end to tell the truth?’

  ‘Of course it would,’ said Hazlerigg wearily. ‘If people understood that, sir, how simple our job would be.’

  ‘I am afraid,’ observed Mr. Scrimgeour, the fourth member of the party, who had as yet taken no part in the conversation, ‘that I must support the inspector there, Mr. Dean. From my early experiences in London I can assure you that witnesses in murder cases – even well-meaning and impartial witnesses – very often seem to be hypnotised into mendacity by the seriousness of the occasion. I need only remind you’—he turned to Hazlerigg—’of the classic example of the carman who so nearly hanged Robert Wood.’1

  Pollock could contain himself no longer.

  ‘Then what you are telling us is that Appledown was already dead when Parvin called at his house at a quarter to eight. His body was already lying behind the buttress – but why? How? Damnation take it (excuse me, Uncle), but are we going to start all over again?’