Warrant for X

by Philip MacDonald

  “I’m in London because Brooks-Carew has been fool enough to do a play of mine. . . .”

  “Tom! And I never knew! But I won’t read the papers.

  “I’ve been here two weeks. I haven’t been to see you before because—as you might guess—I didn’t know you were here. I found out yesterday, accidentally, from Dorothy Brooks-Carew. When I got here this afternoon your maid said you were out so I gave her a long hard-luck story and got in. I didn’t mean to go to sleep but I did mean to see you—even if I waited here a couple of days. . . . That’s all, isn’t it?

  “No sir, thank you, sir. It’s not even the beginning! What’s the matter?”

  “Should I only come to see you because there’s something the matter?”

  “Don’t be a donkey. But there is something!”

  “What makes you think that way?”

  “You ought to be beaten. You’re more like a small boy than any small boy ever was. Sit back, relax, sip at your goblet of some amber-colored fluid and—tell me what’s the matter! In order to avert further procrastination on your part I’ll tell you that you look, though distinguished as ever, like hell. You’re nervous, you’re jumpy, you’ve lost weight, you’ve got that reversed look about your eye which tells of an idee fixe . . . and, finally, you haven’t been sleeping. . . .”

  Garrett said: “Haven’t been sleeping!” and laughed.

  “And your laugh’s about the worst imitation of one that I ever heard. . . . Don’t be silly, Tom! Tell me!”

  Sheldon Garrett looked at his hostess. For a long moment his eyes were caught in the great blue pools of her eyes. There flowed into him, like salving oil upon an angry wound, a sense of sudden ease; the relaxation of a strain whose tension he had not known until it was lessened. He said: “You’re right. But then I suppose you always are. There is something—only I’m beginning to think it’s so damn silly that perhaps I’m going haywire But it’s got me, though I tried not to let it. When I’d done everything I could about it and got nowhere I told myself to forget it. But I didn’t succeed. Not a bit. It’s been eating with me and trying to sleep with me and making me behave so oddly that everybody’s thinking I’m qualified for a lunatic asylum. And I can’t get rid of it. . . .”

  “Tom! Will you stop beating round all these bushes!

  “Listen!” said Garrett and began. . . .

  2

  “And that,” said Garrett thirty minutes later, “is what’s the matter. Now say I’m a fool with an overheated imagination! Tell me the world goes on much better when people mind their own business! Tell me that by going to Scotland Yard I’ve done everything possible! Tell me to forget the whole thing! Show me—oh, so reasonably!—that I read into a conversation a lot of stuff that wasn’t there! Tell me——”

  Avis Bellingham stood up. “What I do tell you,” she said, “is to shut up!” She went to the door. With her fingers on its handle she turned. She said:

  “Wait here. And be good.” She opened the door.

  “Here! Wait a minute!” Garrett jumped to his feet. “What you going to do?”

  “Telephone,” said Avis.

  He crossed the room towards her. “About—about my—idee fixe?”

  She pulled a face at him. “Don’t be egotistic!” she said and was gone.

  She was with him again after five minutes or less. She was smiling and there was a sparkle in the blue eyes. She looked at her watch and then at Garrett. She said:

  “It’s half-past six. How long to go. and put on a dinner jacket and get back here?”

  He looked at her curiously. “Forty-five minutes. Why?”

  “You’re dining out. With me. So hurry!”

  “But I . . .”

  “But nothing! You—are—dining—out—with me!”

  “Oh,” said Garrett, “I see.”

  CHAPTER V

  THE TAXI bumped and jolted. Garrett said, breaking a silence:

  “And where are we going?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? How stupid of me!” She did not look at him. “To some great friends of mine. You’ll like them. I hope they’ll like you. I——”

  “The name?” said Garrett.

  “Gethryn. Lucia Gethryn and her husband.”

  “Oh!” said Garrett in a different tone. And then: “You don’t mean Lucia Gethryn and her husband. You mean Anthony Gethryn and his wife!” He leant forward in his seat with hand outstretched to tap upon the driver’s window.

  But gloved fingers, surprisingly strong, caught his wrist and a voice said softly:

  “Don’t be a fool, Tom!”

  He dropped his hand and turned in his seat and stared through the dimness at a profile which said:

  “And, if you must be a fool, don’t be an ill-mannered one!”

  He said: “Sorry, Avis! But I won’t be dragged into a busy man’s home as a poor sap with a bug in his head and——”

  She said: “I don’t like to think that coming out with me is being dragged. And at the moment Anthony’s not a busy man.”

  “But . . .”

  She drew a deep breath. “And I’ve said nothing about your bug! Nor will I until you tell me.” She looked at him without turning her head. “And I thought it wouldn’t do your bug any harm for you to know the one man who might——”

  “Stop!” said Garrett. “I’m sorry. And you’re a darling.

  “That’s better,” said Avis Bellingham.

  2

  “Something tells me,” said Lucia Gethryn, “that the hostess now collects the women with her eye. Come on, Avis!”

  Garrett opened the door for them. As he shut it, and before he turned back towards the table, the left eye of Anthony Gethryn closed momentarily. Spencer Hastings [1] nodded.

  Garrett came back to the table and sat. The port went round. There was desultory talk. Hastings began the inside story of the informal cabinet meeting which had led, two days before, to the abrupt resignation of the foreign secretary.

  Upstairs in the drawing room Avis Bellingham and the friend who was her hostess sat and smoked and stared at a fire of logs.

  Lucia said: “I smoke too many of these things. I like him. But why did you say he wasn’t much to look at?”

  Avis lit another cigarette. “I wonder whether the stories are over yet?”

  Lucia said: “They don’t, not much anyhow. In fact, not nearly as much as we do.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” said Avis Bellingham.

  Lucia said: “I know.”

  Avis said: “D’you think they’ve got to it yet? . . . Lucia, you didn’t tell Anthony . . . ?”

  Lucia said: “Of course I did! At least I told him that Mr Garrett wanted advice about something. I even said a bit more. . . .”

  “Lucia! You promised ”

  “But I also told him that you thought it best not to let Mr Garrett know that you’d said anything at all about it.”

  “Oh!” said Avis Bellingham and then, after a pause: “How’s the heir?”

  Lucia smiled. “Magnificent. He asked after you yesterday, at great length. So you’ve got two fervent admirers at least; and at the moment both under the same roof. Must be nice.”

  Avis Bellingham said: “Alan’s adorable.”

  Downstairs Hastings filled his glass and pushed the decanter, to complete its circle, towards Garrett. He said to his host:

  “But that doesn’t say that, theoretically, the whole basis of police work is wrong. . .

  “Of course it’s wrong,” said Anthony Gethryn. “But then, it never could be right. Because in no state of civilization will there ever be enough public wealth to establish the only sort of police that a Utopian would tolerate.”

  Hastings said: “That sounds clever. Unfortunately it doesn’t mean anything.”

  Anthony grinned. “Put in simple words for the young, Spencer, what I mean is that the ideal police force is not an organization for the apprehension and punishment of criminals but an organization for the prevention of crime.�
�

  Garrett started. He looked sharply from his host to his fellow guest—but neither was looking at him.

  Hastings said: “A foul idea! The only way it could be run would be to make every man a spy on his neighbour. We haven’t much privacy left as it is; for God’s sake, let’s be alone sometimes—even if it leads to rape and murder.

  “Thereby,” said Anthony, “giving Spencer Hastings—and the rest of Fleet Street—a continued and lucrative existence.”

  Garrett stared at his host. “Look here!” he said suddenly and loudly. “D’you mean what you’re saying? Or are you just taking the thin end of an argument?”

  “He doesn’t know,” said Hastings.

  Anthony said: “It’s a theory; but a sound one. Unfortunately, however, progress is the enemy of sense.”

  Garrett still stared at him. “But you do mean that you believe that crime should be prevented rather than punished?”

  “Naturally,” said Anthony. “Don’t you?”

  Hastings said: “Deprive man of his time-honoured occupation of shutting stable doors after horses have been stolen and you take a good deal of the salt away from his daily food.”

  “Yes! Yes!” Garrett said. “I see all that.” He spoke hastily and with a lack of politeness most foreign to him. And he did not look at the man to whom he was speaking but continued to gaze at his host. He said suddenly, his eyes narrowing: “Did Avis Bellingham say anything to you? About me, I mean?”

  Anthony’s slight stare of bewilderment was admirable. He said:

  “Sorry! I don’t quite understand.”

  “All I meant,” said Garrett, “was—well, skip that! I was just going to say: It’s most extraordinary that we should get on a topic like this. Because only a few days ago I ran right into a living example of it. I . . . But perhaps it’d bore you. You must get your belly full of crime and criminals.”

  Spencer Hastings laughed.

  Anthony said: “I was born suspecting the doctor, I shall die indicting the priest. Go on.”

  3

  Garrett came to the end of his story. He smiled, more than a little wryly. He said:

  “So I suppose I’m crazy, or at least feeble minded.”

  Anthony smiled. It was a preoccupied smile and the crease which had come between his eyes did not leave. He said:

  “Only if you go on thinking so. . . . Who did you see at the Yard, the second time?”

  “Man called Horler,” said Garrett. “Chief Detective Inspector Horler.”

  Anthony said: “Not a bad fellah. Find him a bit short on imagination?”

  Garrett said: “If he’d got any he certainly hid it someplace. But he was very civil, which I’m afraid I wasn’t.” Anthony said slowly: “And you never once saw even a profile of either of those women?”

  Garrett shook his head. “Not even half a cheek. I saw ’em from the back first, last and all the time. If it hadn’t been for that goddam elevator I’d——” He broke off, lifting his shoulders in a small, helpless gesture.

  Anthony seemed absorbed in the little puddle of dark wine at the bottom of his glass. He said without looking up: “And you didn’t hear where either of them booked to?” Garrett stared at him. “Booked?”

  “When you got to the tube station you weren’t close enough behind them at the ticket office to hear where they took tickets for?”

  “Oh!” said Garrett. “Sorry. They didn’t get tickets at the window. They got them out of one of those machines.” Anthony looked up sharply. “Both out of the same machine?”

  Garrett nodded. “Yes. Why?”

  “If you went back to the station could you point out the particular machine?”

  “Yes,” said Garrett.

  Anthony said: “That helps. Or might.”

  Garrett looked at him. “I don’t see how.”

  Spencer Hastings said: “Nor, with all due respect to Master Mind, do I. What you mean, I take it, is that if Garrett showed you the machine you would at least know within half-a-dozen stations where they went to.

  “Magnificent!” murmured Anthony.

  “But,” said Hastings, “you wouldn’t know whether any of the stations represented the district either of ’em lived in. One doesn’t always go home after tea—even in Notting Hill. Particularly on a Sunday.”

  Garrett looked at his host. But Anthony’s gaze was still down bent and he did not raise it and no sound came from him.

  Garrett said: “I hadn’t thought of that. . . His voice trailed off into silence but he was conscious of a vast relief, for here at last were intelligent men who were not treating him like a frightened small boy who must be humoured but were actually applying their minds to this business which obsessed his own.

  Still Anthony did not speak nor raise his head. But Hastings said:

  “It’s like Sawing through a Woman.”

  “Eh!” said Garrett.

  “Or the rope trick,” Hastings said. “I mean, it’s damned interesting but impossible to work out.”

  “Oh!” said Garrett.

  “Think!” said Spencer Hastings. “Think! In greater London there are roughly eight million people. There is nearly, I believe, a two-to-one preponderance of women. That gives us at least five million women. . . . God, what a thought! . . . And out of these five million you’ve got to find two backs. . . .”

  “And two voices,” Garrett said. “Don’t forget that.” His tone was heavy.

  Hastings said: “That’s not really a help. It’s like Sawing through a Woman again. You know there must be two women in the box but you can’t see how the devil they got in there.”

  “Backs!” said Anthony suddenly. He lifted his head and looked at Garrett. “Ordinary backs? No shoulder higher than other shoulders? No humps? No limps? No odd gaits? No real peculiarity of dress?”

  Garrett shook his head.

  “Wait!” Hastings leaned forward suddenly, nearly upsetting his glass. “They might go back to that tea place again.”

  Garrett smiled without mirth. “No one in their senses would. . . . And, anyway, they hadn’t up to yesterday. I went back there.”

  Anthony looked at him. He said slowly:

  “You’re pretty sure about this, aren’t you, Garrett? I mean, sure there was what you’d call dirt in it?”

  Garrett said: “I know there was! I’ve told you, very badly, what they said. But there was more—far more—in the way they said it.”

  The other men looked at him curiously. They saw that his face was suddenly pale and that there were new lines in it.

  Anthony said as if to himself: “If only there were some- thing else!”

  Garrett moved suddenly in his chair. He looked first at his host and then at his fellow guest. He was frowning in concentration. His eyes seemed to be trying to push vision beyond faces. He suddenly stood up and they stared at him, surprised by the suddenness of the movement. He leaned his hands upon the table and again looked at them both. He said:

  “You’re interested in this—this thing. That’s plain. But how far is your interest going? Is it academic only? Or is it—real?”

  He hesitated a little; then added in a different tone: “I know I’m being the worst kind of nuisance. But I want a real answer to that.”

  Spencer Hastings spoke first. He said: “You want the truth, I gather. My interest, so far, is purely academic. It’s got to be—because I say that your problem’s impossible to solve.”

  Anthony said: “I’m interested. And not academically. It’s time somebody’s old governess joined this party to tell us there’s no such word as ‘can’t’ in the dictionary.”

  “Right!” said Garrett. He put a hand to his breast pocket and took out a wallet. He laid this on the table and flipped it open and from it took, with great care, two envelopes. From the first and larger envelope he drew a woman’s black kid glove; from the second, two small pieces of paper. He said:

  “Here are the only things I didn’t tell you about. As far as I can see they don’t
make matters any easier, but they are ‘something else’, and you were asking for that.”

  Anthony pushed back his chair and rose and walked round the table to stand beside his guest. He looked at the exhibits with his head cocked to one side. Garrett said:

  “When I went back to the teashop just after I’d lost the woman in that subway station I pretended I knew them. The waitress swallowed the story and told me that one of the women—she didn’t know which—had dropped a glove. She said would I take it and I did. Inside the palm of the glove were those bits of paper.”

  “Hmm!” Anthony grunted and pulled his chair towards him and sat. He picked up the glove by its extreme edge and looked at it and laid it down. He bent over the two scraps of paper, flipping them towards him by their edges.

  Spencer Hastings rose and sauntered round the table and stood by Anthony’s right shoulder. Anthony said without looking up:

  “Show these to anyone at the Yard?”

  Garrett shook his head. “No. Not when I saw what sort of reception my story was going to have.”

  Hastings peered over Anthony’s shoulder. “One cheap glove; best bargain-basement style. One numbered bus ticket. One—what’s that—oh, one shopping list. Very enlightening ! All you’ve got more, Garrett, is handwriting. Problem: if there are five million women in London how can you find one when you’ve never seen her face, you don’t know where she lives, you’re not even sure she’s a Londoner, but you’ve heard her voice and seen her handwriting and know she knows a man called Evans? The answer, I’m afraid, is nohow !”

  “Why her own handwriting?” Anthony spoke without looking up. “Might be her mother’s. Or anyone’s.”

  “The glove,” said Garrett. “Is there any way of analyzing . . . ?”

  Spencer Hastings laughed. “Shades of Thorndyke!” Anthony said: “You mean, have the dirt extracted from it and examined and see what combinations you get. That’s been done. It works, too, if you’re lucky enough to have subjects belong, for instance, to someone who lives with a starch factory behind him, a flour mill in front of him and a pencil manufacturer’s at the end of his road. But it doesn’t work if the owner of your subject’s just an ordinary person living in an ordinary neighbourhood with ordinary soot and ordinary mud and ordinary dust.”