Warrant for X

by Philip MacDonald

  “I knew them. But I didn’t realize it until I saw them go. I suppose I must have been thinking of something else. When I saw them go, and recognized them—or rather, one of them—I had to run after them.”

  Ancilla said: “Ay quate understand. . . . Bay the way, one of your friends left a glev. . . . Ay wonder . . .”

  Garrett’s heart leapt. So he was going to find something tangible. But what was it? He said:

  “I beg your pardon!”

  Ancilla said: “One of your friends—one left a glev.”

  “Indeed!” said Garrett, hoping that time would show.

  It did. Ancilla swam away from him, was lost in dim shadows near the service door and swam back.

  “Oh!” said Garrett. “A glove.”

  Ancilla said. “Yais. One of your friends mest hev dropped it.”

  She handed it to him. Garrett took it. He did not want to betray too much interest so folded it with as careless an air as he could manage and thrust it into a side pocket. It was a very ordinary glove, for a very ordinary-sized hand. It was of black kid and had white stitching on the backs of the hands and white mother-of-pearl buttons.

  “Thank you!” said Garrett and then, carried away by a passion for his part: “Doris will be glad to have it back.”

  “Deon’t mention it,” Ancilla said. “Gled to hev been of service, Ay’m sewer. . . . End yewer bill—one and nane.” She looked down at the note in her fingers. “Ay will procure change.”

  She melted away from Garrett’s sight. So soon as she had gone he took the glove from his pocket and turned it this way and that. He wished that he were Dr Thorndyke—and then, with an excitement such as he had not felt for years, felt suddenly, if not like Dr Thorndyke, at least like Inspector French.

  For as he held the glove in his hand, feeling its cheap texture, he felt something else. In the palm of the glove it was.

  With fingers which he noted with surprise to be not quite steady he searched it.

  He found a bus ticket and a little slip of paper.

  CHAPTER II

  HE WAS VERY LATE for dinner. After it he spoke for a moment with a pacified hostess. He said:

  “It was unpardonable. But a most curious affair was the cause of it. I’m certain I overheard two people planning a—well, a crime. I——”

  “Terribly interesting!” his hostess said. “How fascinating ! I’m so frightfully keen on criminology, aren’t you! So—so real! I wish Roger were here. You and he really ought to get together. Yes, you and Roger would have such a lot in common. . . . Oh, you must meet Adela properly, you and she were so far apart at dinner. . . . Adela! Adela! Come over here a minute. . . . Adela Pom fret, you know. Written all sorts of things, including that thing everybody was raving about last year or something; that thing, Mr Somebody’s Whatd’youcallit or something. . . . Oh, Adela darling, I thought you and Mr Sheldon should talk to each other. The bad man was so late there were no proper introductions before dinner. Mr Sheldon’s an expert on criminology, aren’t you, Mr Sheldon? And have you seen his play at the Apollo, Fools Rush In? Of course you have. . . . Now I must go and talk to Tommy. . . .”

  Mr Sheldon Garrett looked at Miss Adela Pomfret. She was shaped liked a tarantella dancer but her face was that of an egocentric and ill-tempered horse. He said:

  “My name’s Garrett. Sheldon Garrett. . . .”

  She nodded. “I know. And the play’s called Wise Man’s Holiday. I haven’t seen it.”

  “Er—yes.” Garrett said. “Or no, I should say.”

  “I never go to the theatre!” said Adela Pomfret. “I never read. I hardly ever go out. I am not interested in criminology. Have you heard Pandomano’s lectures? I don’t suppose so. No. Do I see drinks on that table over there? You could get me one.”

  “Certainly,” said Garrett and bowed and left her and was at pains not to return.

  He was introduced to a man whose name he did not catch; a tall, heavily built person with a face which seemed made for a K.C.’s wig. They chatted. After a while Garrett said: “What would you do if you knew some sort of a—well,

  crime was going to be committed and——”

  The heavy face gave forth sonorous laughter. “Tell the criminals how to do it, make sure there was a loophole and get briefed for the defence. What d’you think of that? Eh? What?”

  Garrett screwed his face into a polite semblance of mirth. He said after due protraction of the spasm:

  “I meant it seriously, though. If you knew that a serious crime was going to be committed——”

  “What sort of a crime?” said Vaughan Critchley, who was indeed a K.C. “Murder? Arson? Rape? Criminal libel? Theft? Blackmail? Treason? Fraud? Abduction? . . . There are many.”

  “Yes,” Garrett said with an iron patience. “I know there are a lot of headings under the word ‘crime.’ I——”

  He was interrupted. His hostess was at his elbow. Words came from her. They seemed to say:

  “Oh, there you are, Mr Sheldon. . . . Vaughan, do you know Mr Garrett Sheldon? Oh, of course . . . I see you do. I heard what you were saying, Mr Sheldon. . . . Vaughan, do you know that Mr Sheldon’s an expert criminologist?

  . . . You two should have a lot in common. . . . Oh, I must go and talk to Adela. . . . I’ll leave you to your talk . . . so interesting. . . .”

  It seemed to Garrett that Vaughan Critchley’s eyes rested upon him with something of disfavour. Vaughan Critchley said:

  “So you’re interested in criminology?”

  Garrett shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “Not at all.

  “Oh,” said Vaughan Critchley and then, catching sight of an acquaintance over Garrett’s shoulder: “How are you, Morris? I’ve been wanting to see you for the past week. I——”

  Sheldon Garrett withdrew himself. So soon as he decently could he went to his hostess and made adieu. She said:

  “So awfully glad you could come. . . . Lovely having you. . . . Do hope I shall see more of you. . . . I should love you to meet Roger. You and he would have such a lot in common. . . . You must dine with us quietly sometime; then you and Roger can have a real heart-to-heart talk. Roger’s awfully keen on criminology too. . . . Good-bye, Mr Sheldon, good-bye. I haven’t seen your play yet but I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to at the very earliest possible moment. . . . Good-bye. . . . And do give my love to Maureen.”

  Garrett went out into the air. His temper was bad; his head ached; and he wondered, savagely, who on God’s earth or below it Maureen could be.

  He considered the hour—eleven-thirty—and bed. But he foresaw sleeplessness and thought of the club to which, by Brooks-Carew’s efforts, he had been elected a visiting member.

  2

  He entered the club, having walked there, at exactly midnight. It was nearly empty. He made his way to the big bar whose windows overlook the river. Two men were there—Jack, the bartender, and one member who sat upon a high stool with his head in his hands.

  Garrett ordered a whiskey and soda and, as he was drinking it, looked more closely at his one fellow drinker. He saw with delight that this was a man he knew, being none other than Jamieson Phipps, journalist and playwright and political firebrand.

  Garrett went over and announced himself. Phipps took one hand from his head and looked up. For a moment he stared blankly and then a smile split his round pale moon of a face. He waved to a stool. He said:

  “Siddown. Glad see you.”

  “And I,” Garrett said, “am glad to see you. Very glad indeed! It seems to me that, although I know I’m wrong, you’re the only person of sense in this city. That’s the sort of day I’ve spent.”

  “Too bad,” said Phipps. “Too bad. Have a drink?” He made a sign to the bartender.

  Garrett was looking at the floor. He suddenly said without raising his eyes: “Look here, Phipps, I want your advice. . . . I want you to tell me, seriously, what you’d do in this place—London, I mean—if you had reason to know that a really serious�
�well, crime was going to be committed but you didn’t know against whom?”

  The bartender put down two glasses: in front of Garrett a whiskey and soda, in front of Phipps a tumbler half full of something darker. Phipps turned his head towards Garrett. He said: “Whassay?”

  Garrett looked down at the floor again. He was trying to get muddled thoughts in order. He said after a pause:

  “Let’s put it another way. If you heard two men, that you couldn’t see, talking about a serious crime they were going to commit and then you followed them and lost touch with them without seeing their faces, what would you do?”

  Phipps turned fully round upon his stool. He looked squarely at Garrett. His eyes were screwed up as if in concentration of thought. He stretched out a hand for his glass and picked it up and drank. With his round, thin-haired, palefaced head and his long and very thin body he looked, as he perched upon the stool with his heels over its topmost rail and his long arms hanging down at his sides, like an intellectual hobgoblin.

  Garrett looked at him, waiting an answer.

  “What would I do?” said Phipps suddenly in a great voice so many times exceeding in volume his previous mutterings that both Garrett and the bartender jumped. “I’ll show you what I’d do.”

  Slowly he unfolded his legs and lowered them to the ground and stood, revealing himself as even longer and more emaciated than Garrett had remembered him. He bellowed:

  “I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d—I’d—I’d sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye . .

  On the word “rye” his voice went up to a cracked shriek and now, while Garrett stared in aghast astonishment and the bartender scurried for the gate at the end of the bar, Jamieson Phipps threw up his hands, gurgled twice and fell as a tree falls.

  Garrett, staring in incredulous wonder, saw the white-coated bartender kneel beside the prostrate body. The man said:

  “If you’ll just help me, sir . .

  They picked him up and laid him upon a sofa. He was surprisingly and even a little pathetically light.

  “He’s been on that stool,” said the barman, “ever since eleven this morning—except for one or two little trips like. Brandy, it’s been. But I was hopin’ this time he wouldn’t get like this!”

  “Good Lord!” said Garrett.

  “I’ve been wondering, sir,” the barman said, “whether it was something you said to him that upset him like.”

  Garrett smiled. The smile started as a light twist of his mouth but ended in a gust of laughter which struck even his own ears as almost maniacal. . . .

  3

  He was back at the Savoy by a few minutes after one. He entered the lift frowning and preoccupied. He came out of the lift smiling and intent upon a purpose. He had achieved an idea, and a good idea. As he almost ran along the softly carpeted corridor to his little suite he joyously cursed himself for a fool. There was one man who would tell him what to do; tell him at once whether he was being a quixotic fool or a normal being—and a man, moreover, who most certainly would not be in bed at this time and would not mind being called even if he were.

  He opened his door and slammed it behind him, hurrying into his sitting room. He looked in his notebook and found a number and asked for it.

  There was a long pause, broken by the voice of the hotel operator. It said: “There doesn’t seem to be any answer from your number, sir.”

  “Try again,” said Garrett and waited.

  Another and longer pause and then, just as he had given up hope, an answer. A man’s voice; a very sleepy voice.

  “Bill!” said Garrett.

  The voice said: “Beg pardon, sir. Do you want Mr Akehurst?”

  “Yes!” said Garrett.

  The telephone said: “I’m sorry, sir, but Mr Akehurst is away. He is in Vienna.”

  “Hell!” said Sheldon Garrett and then: “When’s he coming back?”

  The telephone said: “The time of his return, sir, is uncertain. This is Mr Akehurst’s valet speaking, sir. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No!” said Garrett and slammed back the receiver.

  4

  He got to bed at a quarter to two. He tried to read but could not. He put out the light and tried to go to sleep and thought that he could not but did.

  He then dreamed. Unpleasantly. He was running down a long narrow street. Upon each side of him rotting houses of grey brick reared themselves up like skyscrapers. None of their windows was lighted and the man-made canyon was dark save for a whitish effulgence which seemed to come from the low walls separating pavement from mouldering garden. In front of him, as he ran, were two other figures. From behind him, as he ran, came the sound of other running feet. He did not look round but he knew that these feet belonged to an enemy of whom he stood in deadly fear; an enemy who carried over his shoulder like a vanquished enemy a long slender sack. Before him the hurrying figures ran on. Behind him the pursuing feet drew nearer. His whole being was absorbed with a desire to reach some sanctuary which he felt he did not know now but would know so soon as he should set eye upon it. And then, immediately, he saw it. It was upon a corner. It was a small place. It was surrounded by Chinese paper lanterns. He ran towards its entrance, cringing as he came into the light of the lanterns. He plunged through a door and was in temporary safety. It was a vast hall in which he found himself, but a hall which he seemed to know. Over the floor of it were scattered, higgledy-piggledy, little eating booths, each containing a table. He plunged into one in a far dark corner like a frightened rabbit diving into its hole. He crawled under the little table and made himself small and lay there panting, his heart thudding as if it would break its way out of his body through his throat. And then the others came. And they crowded into all the other booths which were all around him. There seemed to be hundreds of them, all talking at once and all talking in whispers. But he could hear their whispers and he knew what they were saying, even when some of the words were inaudible because of the thumping of his heart in his ears. They were talking about him. His name was like an obligato to the rise and fall of their hissing voices. They were going to do something to him. But that was not all. There was suddenly another note introduced into the sibilant choir. They were going to do things to him. That was bad. But they were also going to hurt someone else; someone whom he was suddenly surprised to find mattered to him more than himself. Who was it? The name was clear enough in their whisperings but, although he could hear it, it was as if it was in another language and he could not translate it. Not that that made any difference. It did not. That they were going to hurt her—so it was a woman!—was much worse than that they were going to hurt him. And then, like a thunderous bass to the foul music, came yet another name. And that was the worst of all, because if they were going to hurt this one then it would not only be worse than hurting himself but worse than hurting “her.” He wanted to get up and shout. He wanted to crawl out from his silly little hiding place and defy them. His mind felt suddenly as strong as God’s mind, but when he tried to make his body obey it would not, but lay there cringing and trembling as before. And then he was conscious of something new: he was conscious that somewhere in one of these places near him—perhaps in another little hiding place near his own—there was Someone Else; Someone Else who did not know him or the others, the whisperers; Someone Else who could help him against them. But would he? Would he? . . .

  He waked, sweating. The bedclothes were on the floor. All the muscles in his body were quivering and his throat was parched. He got up and switched on lights and drank water and roughly made his bed again. But there was no more sleep for him.

  CHAPTER III

  SHELDON GARRETT moved abruptly in his chair; so abruptly that his elbow, which had been resting upon the table, knocked over his coffee cup. A waiter came hurrying and busied himself with repairing damage.

  “By God, I will!” said Sheldon Garrett.

  The waiter stared. “Beg pardon, sir!”

  Garrett started. He looked down at
the white napkin which the waiter was spreading over the brown stain. He said:

  “Sorry! Very clumsy of me! Don’t know what I was thinking about!”

  Which was a lie.

  2

  He took a taxi from a rank in the Strand. For some reason, which he admitted to himself was foolish, he did not want to give his destination in the hearing of the Savoy hall porter. It was a salmon-colored taxi, very smart.

  “Where to, sir?” said the driver, who, astonishingly, was not only as smart as his taxi but was civil.

  Garrett said: “Scotland Yard, please. And as quick as you can.”

  “Lost Property Office, sir?” The driver was brisk.

  “No,” said Garrett.

  “Which entrance then, sir?”

  Garrett got into the cab and slammed the door behind him. He leaned out of the window and spoke. He said:

  “I don’t know. Any one.”

  3

  “It won’t be Inspector Michaelson that you need after all, sir!” said the sergeant.

  Garrett looked at his watch. “Who then?” he said, it is to be feared a little shortly.

  The sergeant smiled ruefully. “Sorry to have kept you waiting, sir, but Inspector Andrews will be free in a very few minutes.”

  4

  Detective Inspector Andrews looked past his visitor and out of the window. His visitor, looking at him, thought that he detected certain twitchings about Detective Inspector Andrews’ mouth which might denote the beginnings of a smile.

  “And that, sir,” said Andrews at last, “is all that you have to tell me?”

  Garrett moved uneasily in his chair. He said irritably:

  “Yes. Isn’t it enough?”

  “In one sense, yes sir. In another, no.” Andrews looked at a pad upon which, during Garrett’s recital, he had from time to time been scribbling. He said with a briskness which seemed to presage dismissal: “Now let me see. I think we have everything. The address of the shop. Your description of these two women. Your own address and particulars. And the clerk has shorthand notes of what you recollect of the conversation in the shop.” He looked up at Garrett. “That all?”