“Well, now we are going places,” he said, and his voice was as warm as a fire that’s just been switched on. “What did you say your name was?”
“Smyth.”
“If that’s the way you want it ...”
“I don’t. I’d have liked a more distinguished name. I did the best I could spelling it with a Y, but it hasn’t helped much. I was one of the guests at the party that night. You don’t remember, of course. I’m not the sort of man people do remember. She didn’t. When I came to her house that night she thought I’d come to check the meter or something. She’d never expected me to turn up. She’d just said, ‘You must come in one evening. I’m always at home on Fridays,’ and I thought she just meant two or three people at most... .”
“Tête-à-tête with a tigress,” said Crook. “What are you, anyhow? A liontamer?”
“I work for a legal firm called Wilson, Wilson and Wilson. I don’t know if it was always like that on Fridays, but the house seemed full of people when I arrived and—they were all the wrong people, wrong for me, I mean. They were quite young and most of them were either just demobilized or were waiting to come out. Even the doctor had been in the Air Force. They all stared at me as if I had got out of a cage. I heard one say, ‘He looks as if he had been born in a bowler hat and striped p-pants.’ They just thought I was a joke.”
And not much of one at that, thought Mr. Crook unsympathetically.
“But as it happens, the joke’s on them,” continued the voice, rising suddenly. “Because I’m the only one who knows that Tom Merlin isn’t guilty.”
“Well, I know,” Mr. Crook offered mildly, “because I’m defendin’ him,
and I only work for the innocent. And the young lady knows or she wouldn’t have hauled me into this—the young lady he’s going to marry, I mean. And,
of course, the real murderer knows. So that makes four of us. Quite a team,
in fact. Suppose you tell us how you know?”
“Because I was behind the curtain when he came out of the Turret Room.
He passed me so close I could have touched him, though, of course, I couldn’t see him because the whole house was dark, because of this game they were playing, the one called Murder. I didn’t know then that a crime had been committed, but when the truth came out I realized he must have come out of the room where she was, because there was no other place he could have come from.”
“Look,” said Mr. Crook. “Just suppose I’ve never heard this story before.”
And probably he hadn’t heard this one, he reflected. “Start from page one and just go through to the end. For one thing, why were you behind the curtain?”
“I was hiding—not because of the game, but because I—oh, I was so miserable. I ought never to have gone. It wasn’t my kind of party. No one paid any attention to me except to laugh when I did anything wrong. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Merlin, I wouldn’t even have had a drink. And he was just sorry
for me. I heard him say to the doctor, ‘Isobel ought to remember everyone’s human,’ and the doctor—Dr. Dunn—said, ‘It’s a bit late in the day to expect that.’”
“Sounds a dandy party,” said Crook.
“It was—terrible. I couldn’t understand why all the men seemed to be in love with her. But they were. She wasn’t specially good-looking, but they behaved as though there was something about her that made everyone else unimportant.”
Crook nodded over the head of the telephone. That was the dead woman’s reputation. A courtesan manquée—that’s how the Press had described her. Born in the right period, she’d have been a riot. At it was, she didn’t do so badly, even in 1945.
“It had been bad enough before,” the voice went on. “We’d had charades, and of course I’m no good at that sort of thing. The others were splendid. One or two of them were real actors on the stage, and even the others seemed to have done amateur theatricals half their lives. And how they laughed at me—till they got bored because I was so stupid. They stopped after a time, though I offered to drop out and just be audience; and then I wanted to go back, but Miss Baldry said how could I when she was three miles from a station and no one else was going yet? I could get a lift later. Murder was just as bad as the rest, worse in a way, because it was dark, and you never knew who you might bump into. I bumped right into her and Tom Merlin once. He was telling her she better be careful, one of these days she’d get her neck broken, and she laughed and said, ‘Would you like to do it, Tom?’ And then she laughed still more and asked him if he was still thinking of that dreary little number—that’s what she called her—he’d once thought he might marry. And asked him why he didn’t go back, if he wanted to? It was most uncomfortable. I got away and found a window onto the flat roof, what they call the leads. I thought I’d stay there till the game was over. But I couldn’t rest even there, because after a minute Mr. Merlin came out in a terrible state, and I was afraid of being seen, so I crept round in the shadows and came into the house through another window. And that’s how I found myself in the Turret Room.”
“Quite the Little Lord Fauntleroy touch,” observed Crook admiringly. “Well?”
“Though, of course, all the lights were out, the moon was quite bright and I could see the blue screen and I heard a sound and I guessed Miss Baldry was hidden there. For a minute I thought I’d go across and find her and win the game, but another second and I realized that she wasn’t alone, there was someone—a man—with her.”
“But you don’t know who?”
“No.”
“Tough,” said Crook. “Having a good time, were they?”
“I don’t know about a good time. I think the fact is everyone had been drinking rather freely, and they were getting excited, and I never liked scenes—I haven’t a very strong stomach, I’m afraid—so I thought I’d get out.
They were so much engrossed in one another—‘You have it coming to you,
Isobel’—I heard him say. I got out without them hearing me—I did fire-watching, you know, and one learns to move quietly.”
“Quite right,” assented Crook. “No sense startling a bomb. Well?”
“I went down a little flight of stairs and onto a landing, and I thought I heard feet coming up, so I got behind the curtain. I was terrified someone would discover me, but the feet went down again and I could hear whispers and laughter—everything you’d expect at a party. They were all enjoying themselves except me.”
“And Isobel, of course,” suggested Crook.
“She had been—till then. Well, I hadn’t been behind the curtain for very
long when the door of the Turret Room shut very gently, and someone came creeping down. He stopped quite close to me as if he were leaning over the staircase making sure no one would see him come down. I scarcely dared breathe—though, of course, I didn’t know then there had been a murder—and after a minute I heard him go down. The next thing I heard was someone coming up, quickly, and going up the stairs and into the Turret Room.
I was just getting ready to come out when I heard a man calling, ‘Norman!
Norman! For Pete’s sake ...’ and Dr. Dunn—he was the R.A.F. doctor, but of course, you know that—called out, ‘I’m coming. Where are you?’ And the first man—it was Andrew Tatham, the actor, who came out of the Army after Dunkirk—said, ‘Keep the women out. An appalling thing’s happened.’”
“And, of course, the women came surgin’ up like the sea washin’ round Canute’s feet?”
“A lot of people came up, and I came out from my hiding-place and joined them, but the door of the Turret Room was shut, and after a minute Mr. Tatham came out and said, ‘We’d better all go down. There’s been an accident.’ And Dr. Dunn joined him and said, ‘What’s the use of telling them that? They’ll have to know the truth. Isobel’s been murdered, and we’re all in a spot.’”
“And when did it strike you that you had something to tell the police?” inquired Crook drily.
“Not straight away. I—I was
very shocked myself. Everyone began to try and remember where they’d been, but, of course, in the dark, no one could really prove anything. I said I was behind that curtain; I wasn’t really playing, but no one listened. I might have been the invisible man. And then one of the girls said, ‘Where’s Tom?’ and Mr. Tatham said, ‘That’s queer. Hope to Heaven he hasn’t been murdered, too.’ But he hadn’t, of course. He joined us after a minute and said, ‘A good time being had by all?’ and one of the girls, the one they call Phœbe, went into hysterics. Then Mr. Tatham said, ‘Where on earth have you been?’ and he said he was on the leads. He wasn’t playing either. They all looked either surprised or a bit disbelieving, and Dr. Dunn said, ‘But if you were on the leads you must have heard something,’ and he said, ‘Only the usual row. Why? Have we had a murder?’ And Mr. Tatham said, ‘Stop it, you fool.’ And then he began to stare at all of us, and said, ‘Tell me, what is it? Why are you looking like that?’ So then they told him. Some of them seemed to think he must have heard noises, but Dr. Dunn said that if whoever was responsible knew his onions there needn’t be enough noise to attract a man at the farther end of the flat roof, particularly as he’d expect to hear a good deal of movement and muttering and so on.”
“And when the police came—did you remember to tell them about the chap who’d come out of the Turret Room; or did you have some special reason for keeping it dark?”
“I—I’m afraid I rather lost my head. You see, I was planning exactly what I’d say when it occurred to me that nobody else had admitted going into that room at all, and I hadn’t an atom of proof that my story was true, and—it isn’t as if I knew who the man was ...”
“You know,” said Crook, “it looks like I’ll be holding your baby when I’m through with Tom Merlin’s.”
“I didn’t see I could do any good,” protested Mr. Smyth. “And then they arrested Mr. Merlin and I couldn’t keep silent any longer. Because it seemed to me that though I couldn’t tell them the name of the murderer or even prove that Mr. Merlin was innocent, a jury wouldn’t like to bring in a verdict of guilty when they heard what I had to say.”
“Get this into your head,” said Crook, sternly. “They won’t bring in a verdict of guilty in any circumstances. I’m lookin’ after Tom Merlin, so he won’t be for the high jump this time. But all the same, you and me have got to get together. Just where do you say you are?”
“On the Embankment—in a call box.”
“Well, what’s wrong with you coming along right now?”
“In this fog?”
“I thought you said the fog made it safer.”
“Safer to telephone, because the box is quite near my flat.” He broke suddenly into a queer convulsive giggle. “Though as a matter of fact I began to think the stars in their courses were against me, when I found I only had one penny. Luckily, there was one in my pocket—I keep one there for an evening paper ...”
“Keep that bit for your memoirs,” Crook begged him. “Now all you’ve got to do is proceed along the Embankment... .”
“The trams have stopped.”
“Don’t blame ’em,” said Crook.
“And I don’t know about the trains, but I wouldn’t dare travel by
Underground in this weather, and though I think there was one taxi a little while ago ...”
“Listen!” said Crook. “You walk like I told you till you come to Charing Cross. You can’t fall off the Embankment and if there’s no traffic nothing can run you down. The tubes are all right, and from Charing Cross to Russell Square is no way at all. Change at Leicester Square. Got that? You can be in my office within twenty-five minutes. I’m only three doors from the station, and anyone will tell you my address. I’m better known after dark than any house in London, bar none.”
“Wouldn’t to-morrow ...?” began Smyth, but Crook said, “No. You might have had another warning by to-morrow and this time it might be a bit more lethal than an anonymous telephone message. Now, don’t lose heart. It’s like going to the dentist. Once it’s done, it’s over for six months. So long as X thinks you’re huggin’ your guilty secret to your own buzoom you’re a danger to him. Once you’ve spilt the beans you’re safe.”
“It’s a long way to Charing Cross,” quavered the poor little rabbit.
“No way at all,” Crook assured him. “And never mind about the trams and the taxicabs. You might be safer on your own feet at that.”
Thus is many a true word spoken in jest.
“And now,” ruminated Mr. Crook, laying the telephone aside and looking at the great potbellied watch he drew from his pocket, “First, how much of that story is true? And second, how much a r e the police going to believe? If he was a pal of Tom Merlin’s, that’s just the sort of story he would tell, and if it’s all my eye and Betty Martin, he couldn’t have thought of a better. It don’t prove Tom’s innocent, but as he says, it’s enough to shake the jury. Pity is, he didn’t tell it a bit sooner.”
It was also, of course, the sort of story a criminal might tell, but in that case he’d have told it at once. Besides, even the optimistic Mr. Crook couldn’t suspect Mr. Smyth of the murder. He wasn’t the stuff of which murderers are made.
“No personality,” decided Crook. “Black tie, wing collar, umbrella and brief case, the 8.10 every weekday—Yes, Mr. Brown. Certainly, Mr. Jones. I will attend to that, Mr. Robinson. Back on the 6.12 regular as clockwork, a newsreel or pottering with the window boxes on Saturday afternoons, long lie-in on Sunday”—that was his programme until the time came for his longest lie-in of all.
And at that moment neither Mr. Smyth nor Arthur Crook had any notion how near that was.
Crook looked at his watch. “Five minutes before the balloon goes up,” he observed. It went up like an actor taking his cue. At the end of five minutes the telephone rang again.
* * *
As he made his snail’s pace of a way towards Charing Cross Mr. Smyth was rehearsing feverishly the precise phrases he would use to Mr. Crook. He was so terrified of the coming interview that only a still greater terror could have urged him forward. For there was nothing of the hero about him. The Services had declined to make use of him during the war, and it had never occurred to him to leave his safe employment and volunteer for anything in the nature of war work. Fire-watching was compulsory.
“The fact is, I wasn’t born for greatness,” he used to assure himself. “The daily round, the common task ... I never wanted the limelight.” But it looked as though that was precisely what he was going to get. For the hundredth time he found himself wishing he had never met Isobel Baldry, or, having met her, had never obeyed the mad impulse which made him look up the number she had given him and virtually invite himself to her party. The moment he arrived he knew she had never meant him to accept that invitation.
“And oh, if I hadn’t, if I hadn’t,” he moaned to himself.
The darkness seemed full of eyes and ears. He stopped suddenly to see whether he could surprise stealthy footsteps coming after him, but he heard only the endless lapping of black water against the Embankment, the faint noise of the police launch going downstream, and above both these sounds, the frenzied beating of his own heart. He went on a little way, then found to his horror that he could not move. In front of him the darkness seemed impenetrable; behind him the atmosphere seemed to close up like a wall, barring his retreat. He was like someone coming down the side of a sheer cliff who suddenly finds himself paralysed, unable to move a step in either direction. He didn’t know what would have happened, but at that moment a car came through the fog travelling at what seemed to him dangerous speed. It was full of young men, the prototype of those he had met at Isobel Baldry’s ill-starred party. They were singing as they went. That gave him a fresh idea, and without moving he began to call “Taxi! Taxi!” Someone in the car heard him and leaned out to shout, “No soap, old boy,” but now panic had him in its grip. And it seemed as if then his luck changed. Another vehicle came more slowly through the darkness
.
“Taxi!” he called, and to his relief he heard the car stop.
Relief panted in his voice. “I want to go to Bloomsbury Street. No. 123.
Do you know it?”
“Another client for Mr. Cautious Crook.” The driver gave a huge chuckle.
“Well, well.”
“You—you mean you know him?”
“All the men on the night shift know about Mr. Crook. Must work on a night shift ’imself, the hours ’e keeps.”
“You mean—his clients prefer to see him at night?” He was startled.
“Yerss. Not so likely to be reckernized by a rozzer, see? Oh, ’e gets a queer lot. Though this is the first time I’ve bin asked to go there in a fog like this.”
His voice sounded dubious. “Don’t see ’ow it can be done, guvnor.”
“But you must. It’s most important. I mean, he’s expecting me.”
“Sure? On a night like this? You should worry.”
“But—I’ve only just telephoned him.” Now it seemed of paramount importance that he should get there by hook or crook.
“Just like that. Lumme, you must be in a ’urry.”
“I am. I—I don’t mind making it worth your while ...” It occurred to him
that to the driver this sort of conversation might be quite an ordinary occurrence. He hadn’t realized before the existence of a secret life dependent on the darkness.
“Cost yer a quid,” the driver said promptly.
“A pound?” He was shocked.
“Mr. Crook wouldn’t be flattered to think you didn’t think ’im worth a quid,” observed the driver.
Mr. Smyth made up his mind. “All right.” “Sure you’ve got it on you?”
“Yes. Oh, I see.” He saw that the man intended to have the pound before he started on the journey, and he fumbled for his shabby shiny notecase and pulled out the only pound it held and offered it to the driver. Even in the fog the driver didn’t miss it. He snapped on the light inside the car for an instant to allow Mr. Smyth to get in, then put it off again, and his fare sank sprawling on the cushions, breathing as hard as a spent racer. The driver’s voice came to him faintly as he started up the engine.
Sequel to Murder: The Cases of Arthur Crook and Other Mysteries Page 2