He swung a heavy leg from the corner of the desk where it had been resting, spilling a box of paper clips and pen nibs, and straightened up slowly. “Well, I’ve copied out all that I want. Now I’ll need to see what good it is. Thanks for the loan of the room.”
He lumbered out, leaving an irritated inspector, who as a stickler for tidiness felt rather ill treated, to fan the smoke through the window, pick up the balls of paper and the paper clips, and generally attempt to restore some sort of order to the devastated office.
PART THREE
Chapter 13
Here Comes the Bogy
I NEVER FELT so pleased in all my life as I did that morning when they let me out of jail. I had been feeling a rope around my neck the whole night and it certainly was not a pleasant feeling. Lying on the narrow bunk which did duty as a bed, I had almost succeeded in persuading myself that I had, indeed, murdered Porter and had then forgotten all about it. This may sound absurd and I can’t say that I really expect anyone who reads this to believe me, but all the same it is true and it worried me a great deal.
Though I was very sorry to hear that Swartz had also been murdered, in one way it made things easier for me, for I had an absolutely unbreakable alibi, with half the local policemen as my witnesses, and not even the most determined prosecutor could have attempted to break it down. There were no convenient secret passages from the cell. If there had been I would have found them, for I spent quite a bit of the evening walking around thumping the walls in an absent-minded way. There was an elderly, stout police officer who was going bald, so that all he retained of his hair was a black skull cap and it reminded me painfully of that little piece of mediaeval pageantry, the judge’s black cap. Altogether I spent rather an unpleasant time and made up my mind that I would not visit one of these places again, even under the mild charges of D. and D. or D. and I., which initials stand, for those who know, for the mystical after-the-party Drunk and Disorderly, or Drunk and Incapable.
When I encountered the Daily Courier reporter he seemed sorry to see me, for he had just written up a good story about me and would need to scrap it, besides all the build-up he was planning which was to carry me through the trial and on to the very trap of the gallows. Personally, I thought his regrets for my innocence were just a trifle ghoulish, and, in consequence, I was rather short with him and refused to give him the lowdown on my imprisonment and release.
The morning passed quickly enough, for, although Peter told me that Swartz had been murdered, I had to do some catching up on my articles for the paper and got more about his pet flies from him than about the murder. I did not want to get mixed up in the murder myself as I had come to the conclusion that one per week was quite sufficient for the Blake stomach, which was not strong at the best of times and preferred its blood and mystery between old calf covers or original blue boards, with a printed label on the back.
When I had scribbled off something about the family of drosophila and its super-rabbit habits in the way of breeding (when I was at school I once had a family of white mice that ran them pretty close; I note this in the interests of science), I went to look for my uncle as he had told me that he would buy me lunch to restore my shattered nerves. The janitor, apparently sharing the general disappointment at my release, informed me that Professor Stubbs had left a message that I was to meet him at the police station.
I wondered vaguely what mischief he had been up to, and departed, thinking that it was pretty tactless of him to arrange to meet me at a place of which I had so very few pleasant memories.
As I drew near to the police station I heard a familiar voice roaring like a blowing whale, and turning a corner I saw my uncle in violent argument with a couple of policemen. “So this is a one-way street, is it?” he was shouting, “well, why the hell didn’t you say so or have a notice stuck up. Oh, there is a notice? Well, you should have a larger one. I thought that was an advertisement for cigarettes or a fish and chip shop or somethin’ of the sort.”
I edged my way through the crowd which had gathered to watch the battle and he saw me and gestured to me to get into the car, which was shaking as if nearly as indignant as its owner. “All right, have it your own way,” he boomed and the gears crashed violently. People scattered away from us on all sides as the car started to snake backward down the street at about thirty miles an hour.
By the time we reached the main road my uncle had had time to accelerate to nearly 40 m.p.h. so that we were traveling fairly fast when we hit, or nearly hit, the main stream of traffic. Uncle John paid no attention to the expletives from other road users which descended upon his ample shoulders like confetti, but slammed home the gears and, neatly placing the Bentley between a horse-drawn coal cart and an empty hearse, shot into a side street. Conversation being impossible, I contented myself with the thought that the hearse was following us and concentrated upon trying to move ten-ton lorries out of the way by the use of willpower and a hypnotic eye. I must admit, in all fairness to his driving that, awful driver that he is, I have never seen him drive worse and I am convinced that the only reason that we did not have an accident was that he never envisaged the possibility of such a thing and his faith carried him through, under the startled and unappreciative eyes of policemen who had not time to move before he was gone.
The car was, if I may use the phrase, thrown on its haunches as he stopped it outside a public house called The Swan in the Sand. I lay back in the seat and closed my eyes in an attempt to recover my breath and to give my cheeks, which I guessed would be about the tone of a pale cheese, time to recover their normal tints.
When I felt that I was strong enough to stand on the ground without my knees clapping together like a pair of castanets my uncle was already in the bar joking with the man who had filled two pint mugs and was engaged in expertly slicing roast beef to go beside the vast chunks of bread which lay like bergs on the white surface of the blue-edged plates. I suddenly realised that I was very hungry indeed and helped to carry the lunch over to an oak table in the corner. Uncle John picked up the glass mug and examined the amber beer against the light. “Here’s the skin off your nose,” he remarked gravely and tilted it to his lips. About half a pint slid down his gullet before he laid the mug down and wiped the fringe of froth from his moustache with the back of his hand.
He seemed to be engaged in some deep line of thought and did not speak to me as he ate his bread and beef. When it was finished he engulfed the rest of his beer, waited until I had done the same and picking up the mugs returned to the counter. He leaned over toward the barman and I heard him whisper the word “telephone.” The barman pointed with a jerk of his thumb and my uncle went through a glass door. He was not gone for long and when he returned his face had lightened.
“I’ve just been sendin’ out invitations to a dinner party,” he boomed across at me as he carried the beer over. “Tonight, my boy, you will eat in noble company. I’ve just left a message at the police station askin’ Inspector Hargrave and Joe Flanagan to dinner tonight and I have promised them that I’ll give them the murderer of Porter and Swartz. The sergeant who took my message did not seem to put much trust in my promise but said that he would deliver it all right.
“Now I’ve got a job for you to do for me. First,” he dug out his wallet and gave me a note, “I want you to buy me a butterfly net, or, better still, the largest size of landin’ net you know, the sort of thin’ used by trout fishermen, and, while you wait, have them fit it with a two-foot handle. What do I want it for? Aha, that’s still to be seen but I’ll tell you this, I always fancy that if I’d been put in an arena and given the choice of the trident and the net that I’d have put up a better show with a net. I want to give it a try out as I have no wish to lose my life helpin’ the police. The other thing I want you to do is to go to the Western Union cable people’s office and ask them if you can have a copy of any cable that arrived for Dr. Swartz, either care of the congress or at his hotel.”
I suggested that the pr
obability was that the Western Union would refuse to issue a copy of any cable to an unauthorised person like myself. He winked, contorting the whole of his face and drew a sheet of official police paper from his pocket. Upon this he wrote neatly, “Please provide bearer with copy of any cable addressed Swartz.” He signed it with an illegible signature. “I don’t think they’ll question this,” he rumbled, looking magnificently pleased with himself. “You look like one of those vast eunuch cats,” I said coarsely, “just about ready to burst if anyone put butter on your toes.”
He roared at me fiercely that I should hurry and do what he asked and remember that he was a busy man whose time was not to be wasted by the vulgar insults of urchins. When I left him he was scribbling a caricature of himself as a neuter torn on the back of one of his papers.
I had a bit of difficulty with the fishing tackle people where I went to buy the landing net. The man insisted upon telling me that for the size of net I was buying I would need a long handle so as to get sufficient leverage to lift the gargantuan fish I proposed to catch into the boat. I explained that I did not want it for catching ordinary fish and, shaking his head sadly, he retired to the back of the shop to exchange the long aluminium shaft for a short one meant to be used on a gaff. I am sure he charged me quite a lot more than he would have done if I had just bought the long-handled net, thinking that I might as well pay for my madness.
Rather to my surprise the girl in the Western Office made no difficulty about giving me a repeat of the cable for Dr. Swartz, though she showed an inclination to try and pump me about the murders, obviously under the impression that as I carried official paper I was a plain clothes detective and might give her some tit-bit of news that had not appeared in the paper, which she could make use of to impress her friends. Not knowing anything more than she did, I could not give her any information, but did my best to appear suitably mysterious so that she would feel that she had been visited by one of the very greatest of all detectives. Muttering something deep about Scotland Yard and Whitehall 1212, I left the office, sure that I was a great man in at least one place.
I looked at the cable but could make no sense of it and decided that it was in code. It began as follows: “Re P stop A3B2C4D1E3F2G1, etc.” I hoped that my uncle would be able to make more of it than I had.
Up at the university I found my uncle, who seemed to have an unlimited capacity for liquid, drinking tea with the colourless young man who had been Swartz’s assistant in the tasting demonstration. When he saw me approaching Uncle John carefully folded up a piece of paper upon which he had been writing and shoved it into his pocket. The young man slammed a thick notebook shut and put it under his arm. When I got within earshot they were talking, with an appearance of the deepest interest, about the weather. I sat down and tried to join in this conversation, but after two or three minutes the game palled and I said, “What were you talking about when I came in?”
My uncle nodded his head wisely and his grey hair fell down over his forehead. He placed a thick finger against his nose, in a gesture made familiar by Fagan, and whispered, “Psst. I have a secret and I’m tryin’ to find a way to stop it bein’ a secret. Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies.” He boomed suddenly, in a voice that penetrated the whole building, “Damn it all, can’t you be patient and let an old man have his secrets to himself for a short time. I am Eagle Eye the detective, and Dogsnose the terror of the crooks, and between us I think I will solve the problem of the Duchess’s jewels and the seven lumps of salt. You will find the essential clue lies in the pepper pot filled with spider’s eggs, but you must not forget the glass of chartreuse and the fly on the dial of the clock.”
I saw that I would not get far and decided that I would need to wait until the evening before I got my answer. I handed my uncle the landing net, which, wrapped in brown paper, looked rather like a tennis racket, and also the cable. He put the latter into his pocket without looking at it and tucked the net under his arm.
Looking at me fiercely he announced, “I’ve got to do some work now. I do not want to be disturbed and so I’m goin’ back to the hotel to find some privacy. Do not interrupt me for any reason whatsoever. I will see you later.”
He lumbered down the room, leaving me to pay for his tea and for the tea of the dim young man who had said nothing. I tried to talk to him but he could not think of anything to say except that he did not know how he would ever get over the death of Swartz. I dare say I was slightly unkind, but I felt that I could not stand the thin voice dribbling away mournfully, so I made some excuse and left him.
I filled in the rest of the afternoon by listening to talks which I could not understand and looking through microscopes at chromosomes and trying to persuade myself that I could do more than the professionals and see the genes, the original culprits who were responsible for the fact that all men were not turned out on one model, like so many Woolworth bakelite salt-cellars.
A burly American gave me a lesson in evolution, expounding Darwin to such an extent that I felt that the Origin of Species was a simple little book, in basic English, for the use of school children. I wrote down a lot of notes and made him correct them, and, not content with that, I made him stand by my shoulder while I wrote out the rough draft of my next day’s article, titling it, in the correct journalistic overstatement, “Why We Are Human.” It was a pretty poor article and I could not understand it all myself, so I have no idea what the readers of the Daily Courier made of it. I suppose they must have been ashamed to show their ignorance, for I certainly received no complaints from the paper.
I got back to the hotel before the others had arrived and I found Uncle John in his bedroom, stretched out on the vast sofa that ran along one wall. He had a piece of paper over his face and as he breathed it flapped up and down. Even he could not deny that he was asleep. I had to shake him by the shoulder before he opened his eyes and sat up, spilling sheets of paper all over the floor.
“So you wanted to be alone?” I enquired in a ferocious Garbo voice. Uncle John did not seem to be the least perturbed as he pushed the hair back from his forehead and scowled at me amiably.
“Havin’ finished my work,” he roared, trying to look dignified, “I naturally assumed that I would be justified in takin’ a little rest, and I may say that I did not expect to be thus rudely awakened by a hooligan. I have solved the problem to which I referred earlier today. The jewels were stolen by the Italian secretary, who shot the waxbill with an air-gun, from the bathroom window. I found three grains of snuff upon the wireless aerial and that informed me that I was right. No more will he walk the byways of the world, snafflin’ pigeon’s blood rubies and emeralds the size of walnuts. His mistake was to think that he could fool me. Once more the twin detectives, Eagle Eye and Dogsnose, have proved invincible. Let this be a warning to all crooks.”
He thumped himself upon the chest and the contents of his pockets jangled and crackled. Then he looked more serious. “I think I deserve a little beer after that,” he announced, and we went down to the bar. There we found the inspector, drinking mild and bitter, and Dr. Flanagan, with a glass of Jameson’s Irish whiskey.
My uncle John refused to talk about the murder during dinner and exchanged stories about his adventures as a student with Dr. Flanagan, while the inspector and I examined each other, if not neutrally, at least nonbelligerently. It was only when we arrived at the stage of coffee and brandy that my uncle came round to the subject which was occupying all our minds.
“Humph,” he snorted, blowing out a cloud of cigar smoke, “I suppose we’d better get to our murder. I am convinced that I know who killed Porter, and then, because he knew too much, Dr. Swartz. I think I could prove my case, but though it might satisfy me, I doubt very much whether it would satisfy you or a jury. So I have made arrangements for an experiment. In a few moments we will go up to my room, and the three of you will hide behind various things in the room while I sit at the table.
“No matter if Old Nick himself shou
ld appear in the room, I don’t want any of you to disclose his presence until I give you the word, not even if you should think I am in danger. I am quite old enough to look after myself, and I want you to realise that I know what I’m doin’. You understand that you are not to make a sound, under any circumstances whatsoever? Yes? Then that’s all right, but for God’s sake don’t forget your instructions in the heat of the moment.
“Now, I want you, Inspector Hargrave, and you, Joe, to leave the hotel by the front entrance and to walk along the street until you get to the corner of Norval Terrace. Turn down there and then come back to the hotel and come in by the servants’ entrance. I don’t expect anyone will stop you but if someone should, you can show them your card and impress upon them the need for secrecy. Come up to my floor—you know where it is? Good—in the service-lift—not, under any circumstances, by the stairs. Then you can join me in my room and I’ll hide you. Got all that? Good. Then you can go.”
The inspector and doctor, giving what I thought was a very poor display of nonchalance, left the room. My uncle turned to me, “You heard my instructions? That’s fine. Now, we’ll give them five minutes’ start and then I want you to do exactly the same. If anyone happens to be watching the hotel, that person will, I hope, think that I have been left alone and will act on that assumption.”
He filled up my glass and I drank it slowly, keeping my eye on my wristwatch. Uncle John rose to his feet and pressed the butt of his cigar into the ashtray and I walked down the room beside him. He accompanied me to the door of the hotel and boomed, “I’ll see you about ten thirty then, Andrew. See if you can do that for me.”
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