Three Inquisitive People

by Dennis Wheatley

  The Superintendent finished his whisky. “No, sir,” he said promptly. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question.”

  “He must be pretty worried.” Simon took off his pince-nez and wiped them. “I mean, he’s in a pretty bad muddle.”

  “Oh, another night in Brixton won’t hurt him,” Marrofat laughed, not unkindly. “Gartside and me’ll put in a bit of night work with that young fellow at the mews and with the people at the Park Lane; then, if it’s all right, you can go down with the officer who takes the order and collect your friend in the morning. In any case, it would have been against regulations to have let him out at this hour—it’s too late tonight.” He stood up and turned to the Inspector. “Come on, Gartside, we’ll be moving. Mr. Van Ryn, I wonder if we might trouble you to step round the corner with us?”

  “Sure,” said Rex. “I’ll come right along.”

  Marrofat nodded to the Duke and Simon. “I’m very grateful to you, gentlemen. We can’t always be right, you know, and we don’t run a man unless we’re pretty certain in our own minds about him; we’d rather have no conviction at all than a wrong one, that’s how so many people get away with it, though the papers don’t give us any credit for that. If there’s anything the Yard can do for you at any time, well, let me know, gentlemen. Good night to you!”

  “Thank you, Superintendent.” The Duke extended his hand. “I’m quite sure that what you say is true. Your work must often be beset with difficulties, but, despite that, the London Police Force remains the finest of its kind in the world. Good night.”

  Rex and the two officers walked downstairs together and round the corner into the mews.

  “This’ll be it.” Rex paused before No. 1. Chinks of faint light still appeared between the heavy green curtains. He rang the bell.

  This time there was no responsive clicking of the latch. He rang again, and after a short interval there was a noise above, the curtains were thrust aside, and the windows rattled as it was thrown up.

  Mr. Carrington Smythe’s head appeared. “Who is it?” he demanded crossly.

  “It’s me,” said Rex, stepping back into the light which streamed from the open window. “Didn’t I say I’d be right back?” The two detectives remained hidden one on either side of the door, in the shadow by the wall.

  “Oh, it’s you!” said Mr. Carrington Smythe sulkily. “But I didn’t mean tonight. I’ve got a friend here now.”

  “Sorry,” said Rex. “But I want to talk to you.”

  “Don’t be unreasonable,” Carrington Smythe pleaded querulously. “I’ve told you, I’ve got a friend with me. Come and see me tomorrow. Take me out to lunch.”

  “I want to talk to you now,” replied Rex firmly. “Come right down and open this door.”

  The window was shut with a slam, the curtains drawn to. Footsteps descended the steep stairs furtively, and the door was opened enough to show Carrington Smythe’s angry face.

  “You beast,” he hissed. “Can’t you understand, I’ve got somebody here. I should have thought you’d have more sense than to go waking the whole mews. In a minute we shall have some nasty, snooping policeman round here, the very last thing I want. Do go away.”

  “That’s all right,” said Rex firmly. “I just want you to answer a few questions about what you told me tonight. I’ve brought a police officer along.” Marrofat moved in the shadow.

  Carrington Smythe’s face went an unpleasant shade of green. “You’re mad,” he snapped, and quickly shut the door, but there was no sound of retreating footsteps, and almost they could hear his frightened breathing on the other side of the door.

  The Superintendent rapped sharply with his knuckles. “Come on,” he said. “I’m a police officer. Open this door.”

  Dead silence.

  Marrofat rapped again. “Come on, sonny, don’t waste my time. You’ll be sorry if you do.”

  The breathless silence continued, then the Superintendent spoke once more.

  “I’ve warned you, I’m on to your little game. But there’s no harm coming to you if you act sensible. If you don’t, you’ll spend the night in Vine Street, and perhaps go farther than that. See?”

  Slowly and noiselessly the door swung open. “All right, I suppose you’d better come in,” said Mr. Carrington Smythe ungraciously, and led the way upstairs. They trooped up after him.

  Rex and the Superintendent almost filled the small green room. The latter looked round with a baleful eye. “Pretty—very pretty,” he said in a far from complimentary voice, and he took one of the Beardsley drawings from the wall. “That’s a nice picture for mother’s boy,” he added venomously.

  Carrington Smythe had partially recovered from his fright. He lit a cigarette and stood beside the mantelpiece, endeavouring to register martyred innocence, but he couldn’t keep it up. “Of course,” he said with a sneer, tilting his chin a little, “one can hardly expect people like you to appreciate art.”

  “Art,” said the big detective, tossing the Beardsley from him on to the tumbled divan. “Filth!”

  Rex, who had himself a certain appreciation of Beardsley’s work, felt almost sorry for the wretched Mr. Carrington Smythe, so he intervened:

  “I’d be glad,” he said, “if you’d tell these gentlemen just what you told me earlier on—about seeing an elderly man in this mews, Saturday night, I mean.”

  Carrington Smythe shot him a venomous glance. “I’ve no idea what you mean,” he said in an injured tone. “You haven’t got any right to force your way in here like this, and I refuse to answer any questions. I simply won’t.”

  “Ho, you do, do you!” boomed the Superintendent. “All right, my little innocent. Bring out your client—quick!”

  Fear leapt into Mr. Carrington Smythe’s shifty blue eyes. “I didn’t mean quite that,” he said hastily. His automatic smile flashed out. “How do I know you’re not all having a joke with me?”

  The Superintendent nodded heavily. “Take it from me, son, it’s a joke you won’t forget if you don’t answer up.”

  “Well, if you must know, I did see a man,” Carrington Smythe shot a quick look at himself in the glass. “Just after ten on Saturday, in the mews here.”

  “That’s better.” Marrofat nodded approval, while Gartside became busy with his shorthand notes. “What was he like?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—old and stuffy!”

  The Superintendent drew out his pocket-book, selected a newspaper cutting and thrust it under Carrington Smythe’s nose. “Was he anything like that?”

  “Yes, that’s him,” the young man answered languidly, and then with a sudden movement he snatched at the paper. “I say, do let me look … why, it’s Sir Gideon Shoesmith.” A sudden comprehension dawned upon his handsome, shifty face. “I say,” he whistled, “you’ll want me to come into court as a witness, I suppose—I hate murders.”

  “Rather be a witness for murder than in the dock for something else, wouldn’t you?” said the Superintendent tersely.

  “You are a horrid man,” declared Carrington Smythe petulantly as he turned away.

  “Never mind about me,” replied Marrofat. “How was this chap dressed when you saw him?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, evening clothes, with a light silky sort of waterproof over them. Awfully cold he must have been.”

  “What colour?”

  “Didn’t notice. Darkish stuff. What else do you want to know?”

  “What you said to him?”

  “Thanks, I’d rather not say.”

  “Dare say not, but I won’t use it against you. Out with it.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, I promise,” Marrofat nodded grimly.

  “Honest? Cross me heart?”

  “Yes, I’ll cross me heart—interesting what a lot of faith you’ve got in my promise, and how little I’ve got in yours, isn’t it? Go on.”

  “There’s no need to be rude,” said Carrington Smythe sulkily.

  “For God’s sake get on with it.”r />
  “Well, I only said ‘D’you happen to be looking for No. 1?’”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He didn’t say anything, he just ignored me and walked away.”

  Marrofat nodded. “Well, that’ll be a point in his favour when he comes to meet his God.”

  “Oh, I’m so tired,” said Carrington Smythe peevishly. “I wish you’d go away.”

  “Don’t worry, handsome, I wouldn’t stay in the same room with you longer than I had to, not if I lost me pension.”

  Marrofat turned to Rex. “Any other points, sir?”

  “No, I guess that covers it, Superintendent.”

  “Right. Then we’ll get out of here. And listen, you!” He cast a meaning glance at Carrington Smythe. “You’ll be here when I want you. Understand?” and turned away.

  For a moment the young man’s malice got the better of his discretion. His automatic smile flashed once more as he said: “Wouldn’t it be fun if you broke your neck going downstairs?”

  The Superintendent glared malevolently as he left the room. “Better be careful, sonny, else I’ll put you through the hoop.”

  Carrington Smythe gave a high-pitched laugh. “Oh, no,” he said with a leer. “You can’t be unkind to me and then expect me to be a nice police witness too!” He glared at Rex, who was about to follow the others downstairs, and hissed: “You utter cad! I’ll tell every soul I know about you.”

  Rex paused for a moment on the landing, and the temptation was too strong for him. Suddenly his long hand shot out and he seized Carrington Smythe by his curly golden hair. For a moment he rocked him steadily backwards and forwards, then gently cast him from him. “Do, sweetheart,” he grinned. “I—should worry!”

  Very soon after Rex and the detectives had taken their departure Carrington Smythe’s other visitor slid silently down the narrow stairs and out of the green door.

  Carrington Smythe sat for some time on the tumbled divan apparently in deep thought. “Oh, how I loathe England,” he said suddenly, and standing up he took the portrait of himself in the swimming suit from the mantelpiece. “France is so civilised.”

  He replaced the portrait and took up the telephone directory, a few minutes later he was connected with Sir Gideon Shoesmith’s flat.

  “That is Sir Gideon, isn’t it?” he asked in his high, affected voice. “Well, we have met, of course, but perhaps you might not remember it. That’s not very flattering to me, is it? but it was a very short meeting. I remember you, perfectly well. It was last Saturday—yes, in the evening, about ten o’clock. I’ve got a tiny, tiny flat, you know, in Errol Mews. I should so love to see you again—What! Oh, don’t be naughty now, we could be such friends. I do so hate any sort of trouble, don’t you? I’d ask you to come and see me tonight, but I don’t think that would be quite wise. You’d better meet me in the entrance of the Down Street Underground at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. It’s filthily early, but we simply must have our little talk as soon as possible—nine o’clock.” Suddenly the sweetness went out of Mr. Carrington Smythe’s voice as he added: “And I loathe being kept waiting.”

  25

  Simon Aron Goes to Brixton Gaol

  Having spoken to Superintendent Marrofat on the telephone the following morning, Simon Aron decided to take a day off.

  He rang up his office, from his bedroom in the Club—lying flat upon his back in bed, the receiver glued to his ear—and held long jerky conversations with at least four members of his staff. Then, having foreseen, as far as humanly possible, the contingencies of the day, he swallowed the orange juice which composed his breakfast, and got up.

  By a friendly arrangement entered into with the Superintendent, a plain-clothes officer called for him at half past ten, and together they proceeded in a taxi-cab to Brixton Prison. It was peculiar to Simon Aron’s psychology that although he was a young man of considerable substance, he did not own a car.

  Having arrived at the grim, high-walled enclosure, with its bleak, barrack-like buildings, certain formalities were gone through, while Simon was left to cool his heels in a chilly reception-room. At last, however, Richard appeared, and apart from a rather strained look about the eyes, he seemed much as usual.

  “Hallo, Simon!” They shook hands. “Awfully nice of you to come and get me out.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Simon laughed his nervous laugh, lowering his head to his hand. “Let’s get out of this.”

  A prison officer saw them through the gates and they climbed into the taxi that Simon had caused to wait.

  “Phew!” Richard let out a deep breath as they moved off. “I’m glad to be out of that.”

  Simon patted him affectionately on the arm. “I bet you are. I thought we’d go to the Club and—er—split a bottle.”

  Richard laughed. “It’s great to hear you say that again! Got an Al Raschid?”

  Simon produced his case. “Here, slip this in your pocket, we’ve got plenty more at the Club.”

  “Thanks.” Richard lit a cigarette and inhaled contentedly.

  “I don’t mind confessing, I was getting a bit nervy.”

  Simon’s bird-like head nodded comprehendingly, as Richard went on: “I kept on telling myself that it was bound to be all right. Granville Schatz came to see me twice, I expect you know, and he told me you were doing your damnedest to get fresh evidence, and the Duke, and that nice American as well. I felt certain that one of you would tumble across something that would get me out, and at the worst I hoped that when the trial came on, the fact that the porter saw me leave the flats before ten, and you speaking to a man, when you telephoned later, would be sufficient to clear me.”

  “That was a strong card,” Simon nodded. “A very strong card.”

  “Yes, but say anything had happened to you—or the porter. They won’t take evidence at second hand, you know, or if they’d got a really first-class barrister on the job, who had persuaded or tricked the porter into saying that he was mistaken. You know what these clever lawyers are, they’d have said that it was me you spoke to all the time—what would have happened then? That was what I was beginning to wonder.”

  “We’d have been in a muddle.” Simon agreed.

  “That was the trouble. I kept on trying to persuade myself that everything would be all right; but I couldn’t be sure. Now and again I had that awful panicky feeling. I used to wake up about four in the morning and think to myself—just suppose that things don’t go right—that there is no fresh evidence—and that I have to stand my trial—and then the trial goes wrong—and they bring me back here, and then there are three awful weeks—that terrible law that compels a man convicted of murder to wait until three Sundays have elapsed between his condemnation and execution, in order that he may make his peace with God. Then one cold and frosty morning to be weighed by the hangman that he may calculate the drop, and be led out with your hands bound behind your back! D’you know what I mean?”

  “Rotten!” said Simon feelingly. “Rotten!”

  “I couldn’t help thinking of that marvellous story by A. E. Coppard. ‘Judith,’ I think it was called, but I forget which book it was in.”

  “The one about the schoolmaster who gave the boys pots of paint as prizes, d’you mean? That was in the Field of Mustard”

  “That’s right. You remember the man got hanged for a murder that he hadn’t done. I think that and Aldous Huxley’s The Gioconda Smile’ are the two finest murder stories that I’ve ever read; both so true to life, so devastatingly possible and, if you remember, in both those stories the wrong man got hanged.”

  Simon laughed jerkily. “Well, anyhow, you’re out of the muddle now.”

  “Yes, thank God, but who’s in it? Was it a burglar or don’t they know yet? I haven’t heard a thing, not since I saw Schatz on Wednesday. I imagine there must be something new, or they wouldn’t have let me out.”

  “It’s Gideon’s muddle now, and he can keep it,” Simon said, with one of his quick, sideway glances.
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br />   “Gideon!” exclaimed Richard. “Good Lord, that’s pretty bad., isn’t it? Mind you, I never liked the man, but I didn’t think he was capable of a thing like that. Are they certain?”

  “Um,” Simon nodded quickly. “Not a doubt.”

  “Old brute,” said Richard slowly. “Well, I hope he swings for it. Mother was a damn good sort, poor dear, full of life and fun. It wasn’t even as if she had been difficult or rotten to him—he hadn’t the faintest shadow of excuse.”

  “Tell you all about it in a minute,” Simon volunteered, as they stepped out of the taxi. “We’ll get our bottle first.” They paid the man off and went into the Club.

  Simon did not trouble to consult the wine list as he was very well informed regarding the contents of the cellar at the Club, and soon they were sitting in a comfortable corner with a bottle of Bollinger 1919 between them. Simon lowered his head to his glass and looked over his pince-nez. “Well—pleased to see you, Richard.”

  Richard smiled back. “Same to you, Simon. I say, doesn’t champagne taste good?” He set down his glass carefully. “I feel as though I’d been locked up for a couple of years. Now tell me all about the old man.”

  “You know about the dinner he went to at Park Lane?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he left the party early, just before ten. Lots of people moving about between the speeches, not difficult, you know—got home as quick as he could—wouldn’t take more than four minutes at a fast walk, I tried it—entered the flat through the sitting-room window.”

  “D’you mean he went up the fire escape?”

  “Um,” Simon nodded. “Easy in that fog, the first floor is only about twenty feet up; did the job and came back the same way. Had a drink in the Park Lane bar, and got back to the dinner in time to hear the last two toasts. Clever, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, he’s clever enough,” Richard admitted bitterly. “Coldblooded brute. Your telephone call must have shaken him a bit, though?”

  “Yes, rotten for him that—a pretty good performance answering it so quickly all the same. If that ‘phone had gone on ringing the maids might have ruined the whole party.”