“Maybe we can’t afford them,” said Fulton, flushing a little. “What you mean is if I’d been on another paper—the Times or the Guardian—maybe I wouldn’t have written the story when I checked with the Yard and found out you wanted it kept quiet.”
“That’s right.”
“You may have a point.”
“The question is: What are you going to do now?”
“You’re not going to tell me I can’t run this story, are you?”
“We do have what is supposed to be a free press here in England. Which means that I can’t tell you what you should and what you should not print.”
“I know. But you can make it pretty difficult for us if we don’t do what you want. Now would you rather I didn’t write the story?”
“Someone clearly wants you to write it, don’t they? Write it and run it?”
“So it seems.”
“There’s no question about it. They gave you the material for the first story, followed it up with this second note. Generally speaking, when an enemy wants you to do something, you should be sure you don’t do it. But in this case, we not only don’t know who our enemy is, we don’t know what he or she is up to. So my feeling is, go ahead. Let’s do what he or she wants. Perhaps that will help us determine why he or she wanted the story run.”
Fulton sighed with relief. “All right. Is there any special way you’d like it handled?”
“No. Except that it might be well if you weren’t too flat-footed about it. Speculate about whether Miss Tillett might or might not have received some kind of threat without coming out and saying she had.”
“Will do,” said Fulton, getting up. “Miss Tillett, I’m sorry if I upset you, and I hope the inspector gets to the bottom of this very soon. I feel we’re all deprived when you’re not on a stage somewhere in London.”
“Thank you,” said Verna, forcing a smile.
“Well?” said Wyatt after Fulton had left. “Does anyone have anything to say?”
“I liked him better at the end than I did at the beginning,” said Sara. “I suppose because he admitted he’d gotten those notes and also because he did seem to care about what happened to Miss Tillett.”
“Right,” said Andrew.
“Then you feel he was telling the truth about the notes?” said Wyatt. “That he didn’t write them himself?”
“That never occurred to me,” said Verna. “Don’t you think that they were legitimate—that they were sent to him?”
“Frankly, I do,” said Wyatt. “But no one’s infallible, and I like to consider every possibility. Have any of you anything more to say about either of the notes—the one on the card that came with the flowers or the one Fulton just gave me?”
“Well, we agreed that whoever wrote the card was both literate and intelligent,” said Andrew. “There was nothing in the other note to make me change my mind about that.”
“No,” said Sara. “But there was something else. I’m not sure why, but I have the feeling that whoever wrote them has something to do with the theatre.”
“That’s interesting,” said Wyatt. “And I agree. I suspect that one of the things that gave you that impression was the phrase in the letter Fulton got at the Journal: that he ask Verna Tillett ‘why she’s keeping off the boards.’ That sounds like a theatre person talking.” Then, as they nodded, “To sum up, it’s our impression that the notes were written by someone literate and intelligent who has—or has had—some connection with the theatre.”
“But why?” asked Verna. “Why has he or she picked me as a target? I thought you were being silly, all of you, when you worried about my going on in a play. But now … now, very frankly, I’m worried. Do you think that the person who has been writing the notes is the same person who has been committing the murders?”
“I don’t know,” said Wyatt. “I’m quite sure there’s a connection; but so far I don’t know what it is. As for being worried, I can’t say, ‘Don’t be.’ But at the same time, I’m sure you know that we’re going to do everything we can to protect you. And when I say everything, I mean everything.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Verna. Then, as he picked up her hand and kissed it, “Where are you going?”
“Back to the Yard. I want some of our experts to look at these notes, see what they have to say about the handwriting, the paper, the ink.”
“Will you be coming back?”
“Have you forgotten that we’re going to the opera?”
“No. I just wasn’t sure…”
“My dear!” He bent down and kissed her again, her cheek this time. “We’re not going to let this madman—or madwoman—keep us from doing the things we enjoy. I’ll see you at a little after seven.”
Verna came home at about eleven thirty that night. Andrew had been asleep, but sleeping very lightly, for he woke when he heard Matson open the door and heard Wyatt’s voice. Then, about a half hour later, he heard Wyatt leave and Verna come upstairs, after saying goodnight to Matson, who now went through the house for the last time, making sure that all was secure. Andrew should have been able to sleep now. After all, Verna was home and all was well. But though he did drift off again, he did not sleep any more soundly than he had while he was waiting for Verna to come home.
He woke with a start, not knowing what had wakened him. He picked up his watch, which he kept on the table next to his bed. It was a repeater, so there was no need for him to strike a match to see what time it was. He pressed the button next to the winding stem and it chimed once for one o’clock, twice for two quarter hours and three times for another three minutes. It was one thirty-three. He listened. The house was quiet except for the creaking, settling sounds it always made during the night. Then he saw the faint light that showed under the bottom of the door and realized that the light must still be on in Verna’s room. Had she fallen asleep with it on? Perhaps. But perhaps not.
Getting out of bed, he stepped into his slippers, put on his robe and crossed the hall to the door of Verna’s room, which was directly opposite. Again he listened. There was no sound from within but, when he knocked very lightly, she responded instantly.
“Andrew?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Come in, dear.”
He opened the door and went in. She was sitting up in bed wearing a dressing gown, holding a book on her lap, but he had a feeling she had not been reading.
“I saw that your light was on,” he said, “and I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I’m fine. I was just having trouble getting to sleep, so I thought I’d read for a while. What about you?”
“I was asleep, but I woke up. How was the opera?”
“Wonderful. As you know, it’s one of my favorites.”
“Yes. Did you see anyone there, meet anyone?”
“Lawrence Harrison and his wife. They had some guests with them.”
“Did Peter have anything to say? About the notes or the flowers, I mean.”
“Not really. He sent someone to Foljamb’s to inquire about the flowers. Foljamb himself didn’t take the order; he knows me and would have taken special note who placed it. One of the assistants took it at a time when they were very busy. He told the constable he’s not sure who placed the order, but he thinks it might have been a woman.”
“A woman?”
“Yes. I don’t know why anyone should hate me and want to harm me. But, in a way, I suppose it’s more likely to be a woman than a man.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything to make an enemy of a man. But some woman might resent the fact that I once got a part instead of her.”
“But it’s been years since you had to compete with anyone for a part.”
“Well, if whoever’s behind the notes and the killings isn’t completely rational—and clearly he or she can’t be—then time doesn’t matter. A grievance can continue to be pressing for years.”
“I suppose that’
s true.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “You’re upset, anxious, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Andrew, I am. Frankly, it surprised me that I should feel this way. There have been times in the past when I worried about something—you, for instance, when you were sick. Or about how I was going to do in a new part. But this is different. I was annoyed to begin with when Peter insisted I stay off the stage until this whole thing was solved. I thought he was being silly, which is very unlike him. But since I got that note with the flowers … I think what I find frightening is the fact that it has become personal. It’s not just that there’s something menacing out there, someone who’s killed several other women and might want to hurt me. Someone out there knows me, has been thinking of me—and thinking of me in a very special way. ‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’”
“That’s Macbeth, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Andrew moved to the window and was looking out toward Rysdale Road. “Have you looked out of the window since you came home?”
“No. Why?”
“A constable usually comes by here two or three times during the night. But tonight there’s been a policeman out there all evening. He goes back and forth as if he’s walking a beat, but he’s never left Rysdale Road.”
“Let’s see.” She got out of bed and stood there next to him, watching as the sturdy, helmeted figure in dark blue went by, visible for a moment in the yellow glow of the gaslight and then disappearing in the darkness beyond it. “Is that Peter’s work?”
“Of course. If he thought you were in danger and needed protection, he’d see that steps were taken to protect you, no matter who you were. But feeling as he does about you … Well, you can imagine that the steps he’s taken are probably quite extraordinary.”
“I’m sure that’s true. And I wonder if that can have anything to do with the way I feel.”
“What do you mean?”
“We haven’t talked much about your father. You didn’t know him—you couldn’t since he died before you were born—but he was a wonderful man, and I loved him very much.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“I was miserable for a long while after he died. When I started to do well in the theatre, that helped. And when I came back from America after all those years and found you, that made even more of a difference. These past few years have been very good ones, and I’ve been very happy. There was one kind of happiness, however, I never expected to have again: finding a man I could love as much as I did your father, a man who would love me as he did. Then I met Peter. Our feelings for one another have grown over a long period of time. And now … Well, as you know, I do love him. Love him as much as I did your father.”
“And you feel guilty about it—as if that’s wrong, somehow.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think it’s wrong. And I don’t think my father would have thought so either.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If he loved you, he wouldn’t have wanted your life to end when he died. He would have wanted you not just to go on, but to be as happy as possible. And loving someone is a very important part of that.”
She looked at him for a moment, her eyes very large and very luminous.
“Yes,” she whispered finally. “You’re right. Thank you, Andrew.”
10
Questions
The summons came the next afternoon, and when it did, neither Wyatt nor Tucker were surprised. They were both in the office, Wyatt writing a report and Tucker doing some filing, when there was a knock on the door and a sergeant came in and gave Wyatt an official-looking note.
Tucker watched him as he read it.
“From his nibs?” he asked.
“If you mean the assistant commissioner, yes.” He looked up at the sergeant. “I thought I was his nibs.”
“When I’m talking to someone else, you are. When I’m talking to you, it’s the assistant commissioner.”
“And what’s the commissioner?”
“Being just a ’umble sergeant, I wouldn’t dream of calling him anything but commissioner. What’s he want?”
“To see me.”
“When?”
“Now. Right now.”
“Oh.” Then, dryly, “I wonder why.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Of course, I don’t.” Then, as Wyatt stood up and straightened his tie, “I want you to listen to your old uncle Tucker for a minute. We’ve got a very difficult problem here, and, while we may not have come up with any brilliant answers yet, no one else could have come up with anything either. So don’t take any guff from old grumble-guts.”
“Can I quote you on that?”
“You can.”
Smiling, Wyatt left. But the smile did not last long, and by the time he had gone down one flight of stairs and traversed the long corridor that took him to the assistant commissioner’s office, he was properly sober. He knocked and went in.
The assistant commissioner’s office was in one of the round towers that formed the corners of the facade of New Scotland Yard. Two of the windows faced the Thames and Her Majesty’s Indian warehouses on the Surrey side, and the other two looked south at Westminster Bridge and the House of Parliament. Assistant Commissioner Sutton, stocky and square-shouldered with greying hair and a closely trimmed grey beard, was sitting at his desk. Slouched in a chair next to it was a trim, light-haired man in his early forties, who wore his dark coat and striped trousers with great casualness.
“Oh, there you are, Wyatt,” boomed the assistant commissioner. “Good of you to come so promptly. I don’t believe you know Felix Barnett of the Home Office, do you?”
“No,” said Wyatt. “I’ve never had the pleasure.” He did not add that he knew a great deal about Barnett, who was Undersecretary and responsible to the Home Secretary and Her Majesty’s government for the proper functioning of the Metropolitan Police.
“No, we never met,” said Barnett. “But of course I’ve heard a good deal about you from friends in the Foreign Office.”
“That would have been in the matter of young King Alexander of Serbia,” said the assistant commissioner, nodding. “Good show, that.”
“Very. It was largely because of that case that I endorsed the decision to give you the responsibility for protecting the Ghazipur jewels.”
“Thank you,” said Wyatt.
“No need to thank me. You’re a very useful member of the force and generally quite sound. Which is one of the reasons I’m so interested in these observations of yours.” He held up a sheaf of papers in an official folder.
“Are those my comments on the semi-annual report, sir?” Wyatt asked the assistant commissioner.
“Yes,” said Sutton. “I only had a chance to read it this morning, and when Mr. Barnett got here, I gave it to him to look at.”
“As I understand it,” said Barnett, “it’s your conviction that something very disturbing is happening in criminal London. You seem to think that over the past six or eight months, someone has begun to organize a good deal of criminal activity—becoming a kind of czar of crime.”
“That is correct, sir.”
“I gather you base this hypothesis on the statistics in our own report. On the fact that, though there have been fewer robberies of all sorts, there have also been fewer apprehensions and fewer convictions. In other words, though in general there has been less crime, a greater percentage of the crimes that took place have been successful.”
“Exactly so.”
“You know this is an old story. Periodically, whenever the gutter press has nothing else to write about, they suggest that some criminal genius has arisen and is playing the tune to which all lawbreaking London is dancing.”
“I know that, Mr. Barnett. But this is different.”
“Different how?”
“Are you a fisherman?”
“I’ve done a certain amount of fishing.”
“Did you ever fish a poo
l that was not particularly likely—because it was the wrong time of day or because the water was too high or too low—and still, the minute your line hit the water, you knew that there was something there, something very big, looking over your offering.”
“You’re saying that you’ve been sensing something like that?”
“Yes, sir. I and a few others here at the Yard sense that something’s going on. And I must say I had that feeling before the most recent report came out and I had a chance to look at the figures.”
“Well, as I said, I think it’s very interesting. Though of course the only way you’ll be able to prove your thesis is if you actually come up with the arch criminal. But that’s not why I came over here. I assume you saw this afternoon’s Journal” he said, nodding toward the copy of the paper that lay on the assistant commissioner’s desk.
“I did,” said Wyatt, his voice dropping.
“What do you think of that Fulton story?”
“I’d like to say, I think about it as little as possible. But I’m afraid it’s too serious a matter to joke about. Of course, I’ve been expecting it.”
“Expecting it?”
“I knew Fulton was writing it. He came out to St. John’s Wood to talk to Verna Tillett yesterday, and I arranged to be there at the time. There was some information he had that I wanted.”
“Was he cooperative?”
“He was.”
“I gather you were not able to dissuade him from writing the story.”
“Actually, I didn’t try. Though I often don’t like the result, I think it’s a mistake for anyone to interfere with the right of the press to print what it wishes.”
“I agree. Though I must say that the whole situation is becoming more and more frightening. I mean, for Verna Tillett, one of our most distinguished actresses, to be singled out and specifically threatened…”
“I know,” said Wyatt, grimly.
“What about the last part of the story where Fulton discusses Sarah Bernhardt’s imminent visit and wonders if she might be in danger from this mad murderer; did he say anything to you about that?”
The Case of the Murdered Players (Andrew Tillet, Sara Wiggins & Inspector Wyatt Book 7) Page 7