by Cyril Hare
Nothing ever gave Stephen more pleasure than scoring off his brother-in-law elect, all the more so because the opportunity did not often arise. Nobody, however, could have divined the fact from the casual tone in which he now answered.
“Oh? Yes, I know. He’s an alderman too, or was a couple of years ago.”
Martin looked as disappointed as Stephen hoped he would.
“How did you find out?” he asked.
“It’s all in this little book here,” said Stephen indicating the guide. “Much better way of getting information, you know, Martin, than running about and calling attention to yourself by asking questions.”
“Sorry and all that,” said Martin. “But as a matter of fact, I didn’t ask any questions. Anyhow, that isn’t the real snip I meant to tell you about. The point is—there’s a meeting at the Club to-night. I found out about Parsons from the advertisement of it hanging up outside.”
“I don’t quite see where what you describe as the snip comes in,” Stephen said.
“Well, the meeting—it isn’t a meeting exactly, but a Rally—d’you think there’s much difference?—is being addressed by the Conservative candidate, and all are welcome. It occurs to me that all includes us.”
“Do you really suggest that we should go to a political meeting?”
“Well, after all, why not? It’s all in the day’s work. You went to church yesterday, didn’t you? This can’t be half as dull—in fact it might be quite amusing. Besides, I’m a Conservative myself, anyway. Everybody ought to be, I think, if he cares for his country. But that’s not the point. Don’t you see, Parsons is bound to be there, as secretary of the blooming show, and we can get a good squint at him.”
“There is something in that,” Stephen admitted. “I don’t see what good it’s going to do us looking at the fellow at a public meeting, but it will be one way of spending an evening in this God forsaken place, at all events. What time does it start?”
“Eight o’clock. It’s a foul time, I know, but I expect the chaps in these parts mostly go in for high tea. I suppose there’s quite a chance of our dropping in for a row at the meeting,” he went on hopefully. “This place must be pretty red with all the unemployment there is about.”
* * *
If Martin had looked forward to grappling with embattled Bolsheviks at the Conservative Club, he was disappointed. True, Midchester was “red,” in the sense that it had returned a Labour member time out of mind, but this very fact made the majority less disposed to pay any attention to the activities of their opponents. If Sir Oswald Mosley himself had visited Midchester, he would have been greeted with not more than a few languid brickbats. The Conservative Rally proved to be a dull, decorous function. It was poorly attended, so that Stephen and Martin were able to pick seats with a good view of the platform. Evidently the good party men of the locality rated their chances of success as low as did the Socialists, and the proceedings opened with the reading of an impressive list of those who apologized for their absence. There was a sprinkling of unbelievers present, pale, shabby men in whom even the instinct of revolt had been all but extinguished by years of unemployment and what politicians have agreed to disguise beneath the polite word “malnutrition.” Quite plainly, they did not believe a word of what was being said from the platform, but they were too listless to heckle, and even an incautious reference to the Government’s work for the unemployed produced no more than a few sniggers, which were meant to be sarcastic, but sounded merely melancholy. It was difficult to understand why they should have troubled to attend a political meeting, except from sheer force of habit, so clear was it that nothing that could be said from any platform would ever raise them to hope or even credulity again.
By contrast, the men and women on the platform looked almost indecently well fed. The chairman was bald and pink and round—the eternal type of chairman all the world over. The candidate was a vigorous young man of obvious ability, who had been selected to contest this hopeless constituency on the excellent principle that reserves safe seats for those who can afford them. The others were a nondescript collection, bearing one and all the self-righteous look of those who are enduring boredom for the sake of duty. Stephen did not have to look at them long before he found the man he sought. One does not have to be an expert detective to recognize the honorary secretary at any sort of gathering.
To make sure, he said to his neighbour before the speeches began: “Is that the secretary, sitting on the chairman’s left?”
“That’s right, Mr. Parsons. And that’s the agent he’s talking to, Mr. Turner. A good sort, he is.”
“He looks ill,” Stephen remarked.
“Who, Turner?”
“No, Mr. Parsons.”
“Oh, him! Yes, he does look queer, doesn’t he? Sort of worried, he looks—has been some time. I don’t know what he’s got to worry him, considering . . .”
But at this point the chairman rose, not more than a quarter of an hour after the advertised time, and the proceedings began.
Stephen devoted most of the rest of the evening to studying Mr. Parsons. There was no doubt of his looking ill. His face was pale, as pale as those of the unemployed at the back of the hall, but it was a pallor of a different quality—the type that goes with too much work rather than with none at all. His forehead and cheeks were deeply creased and there were ugly dark patches beneath his eyes. But what was particularly striking about him was his restlessness. He seemed unable to control the movements of his hands, which were forever playing with his gold watch-chain or alternatively ruffling and smoothing his sparse grey hair, while his eyes wandered incessantly about the hall, scanning it from floor to ceiling and back again. Altogether, he appeared to be paying considerably less attention to the speeches than was becoming to the secretary of the association.
That he had his wits about him, none the less, became evident when, at the close of the candidate’s speech, and a half-hearted sputter of irrelevant questions, he was called upon by the chairman to propose a vote of thanks. This he did briefly and wittily, in the manner of an experienced public speaker. It seemed however, to one observer at least, that his mind was hardly on the task which he was accomplishing with such ease; and the instant that he sat down he resumed his former air of abstraction.
Stephen made use of the occasion to observe to his neighbour as they were preparing to go out, “Good speech, that.”
“Yes,” the man replied. “He’s not half a bad candidate.”
“I meant Mr. Parsons’ speech.”
“Oh, yes, that was good enough. But after all, it’s no wonder with all the practice he’s had. Been in politics here a long time, y’know. Well, I must be going now. Good night.”
And he took himself off, leaving Stephen’s curiosity as to Mr. Parsons’ business and position in life still unsatisfied.
Martin, meanwhile, had been following the proceedings of the meeting with every semblance of enthusiasm. He had clapped vigorously, “hear heared” loudly, and shown a face of disgust and scorn at the rare interruptions from the dissidents. When the audience dispersed, Stephen found him eagerly talking to a man at the door who was distributing forms of enrolment in the Association.
“My good Martin, what on earth—” Stephen began in disgusted tones.
“Just a minute, old chap. I’m coming,” Martin answered over his shoulder. He took two of the forms and a bundle of political pamphlets with one hand, while he warmly wrung the organizer’s hand with the other. “I say, Steve,” he went on as he rejoined his companion, “wasn’t that a grand speech? I thought he fairly gave the Socialists hell, didn’t you? Pity there wasn’t a better audience.”
“Really? I didn’t listen to it myself.”
“Great mistake,” said Martin as they made their way out into the street. “You’d have learnt something if you had; you really would. I know I did, anyway.”
“You seem to forget that we didn’t go to the meeting to learn about politics. I flatter myself that
I have learnt something this evening, rather more useful than the Tory propaganda you’ve been listening to.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Martin’s spectacles gleamed up in his direction, as if groping for enlightenment. “Did you find out much? I spotted you trying to pump the fellow on the other side of you. Rather dangerous, I thought. Chap might have been a friend of the quarry’s. Put him on his guard and all that.”
“I took very good care to do nothing of the sort,” said Stephen coldly. “In any event, one must take certain risks in an inquiry of this kind. I can’t see that offering to join the Conservative Association is going to get us any further.”
“Did you find out what sort of job Parsons has got?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t manage to get so far, but—”
“That reminds me,” Martin interrupted him. He stopped under a street lamp and held one of the papers in his hand close up to his nose.
“Damned small print,” he muttered. Then: “I’ve got it! Central Buildings, Westgate Street.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Parsons’ business address. You see, I knew they’d be bound to have the secretary’s address on the enrolment forms, or how would anyone know where to write to get enrolled? Then it was long odds that they’d put his business address, as chaps don’t care to be bothered with letters about that sort of thing in the home. At least, I was secretary of a Rugger club once and I know I didn’t. You can always sweat the office typist to do the donkey work, if you know how to manage her. So, you see, I—”
“I see. Now we might as well be going home.”
“Wait a sec. Westgate Street ought to start somewhere about here. I thought I noticed it on the way to the meeting. Might as well go and have a squint at Central Buildings, don’t you think?”
Stephen felt too humiliated to protest, and a few minutes later they found themselves opposite a tall, soot-blackened range of offices in what was evidently the business centre of the city.
“Classy-looking offices,” Martin observed. “Wonder whose they are?”
They crossed the road and read the names outside the main entrance.
“An architect, a solicitor and the local income tax extortioner,” Martin said. “All on the top floors. The rest of the palace seems to be the property of the Midchester and District Gas Company. Well, if friend Parsons is in that, he’s presumably on a fairly good thing.”
Stephen remembered the remark of his chance acquaintance at the meeting. “I don’t know what he’s got to worry about, considering . . .”
“I should think that is his job, in all probability,” he said. “And in view of his public position in the town, he’s probably fairly high up in it.”
“Humph,” said Martin as they made their way back to the hotel. “There’s something done this evening, anyway. You had a good look at him, Steve. Tell me, do you think he’s beardable, so to speak?”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Stephen, remembering Parsons’s strained and nervous manner. “We’ll sleep on it.”
But the most important discovery of the day was still to be made. They were in the lounge of the hotel, drinking a last whisky and soda before going to bed. Martin had recurred once more to the arguments which had so impressed him at the meeting and was now regurgitating them with enthusiasm and emphasis. Stephen, thoroughly bored, was only prevented from being extremely rude to him by the reflection that if he insulted him, he could hardly in decency allow him to pay for the drinks. Finding the strain of listening to Martin’s political views too much to bear, he compromised by picking up the first piece of reading matter at hand, which happened to be a copy of the Midchester Evening Star. Automatically, he turned to the City page, and was about to read the Stock Exchange closing prices when his eye caught something in an adjoining column of greater moment. He read it to the end, and then cut Martin’s periods short with an excited exclamation.
“What’s the matter?” asked Martin. “You know, Steve, I may be a lowbrow, but I do think about politics, and if you’d only listen to me, you might learn something. After all, nowadays—”
“Damn politics! Just look at this, you chump!” said Stephen, and thrust the paper under Martin’s nose.
“Oh! Sorry! Is it anything important? Look here, Steve, you’ve been had. This paper’s three days old.”
“That doesn’t matter in the least.”
“Doesn’t it? Oh, I see now what you’re getting at. ‘Annual General Meeting of the Midchester and District Gas Company.’ M’m. Extraordinary time of the year to have an Annual General Meeting. Just shows what these chaps in the provinces will do, doesn’t it?”
“What the hell does it matter? Read it!”
“Oh, Lord, have I got to read it all? It looks as dull as hell. I suppose I can skip a bit. . . . Aha! Parsons is the assistant manager, I see. Hell, that’s worth knowing, I suppose. Anything else about him in this?”
“No. But just look down at the bottom of the column.”
“What? That’s the balance sheet. No good expecting me to understand figures, you know. Not got the head for them, somehow. I can’t—Oh, wow; oh, wow; oh, wow! Steve, I apologize. This is a snip, and no mistake! I nearly missed it altogether. Right at the bottom of the page, as you said. ‘Vanning, Waldron and Smith, Chartered Accountants.’ Who’d have thought it?”
They were both silent for a moment.
“When the assistant manager of a firm in the Midlands,” said Stephen slowly, “meets a partner in that firm’s London accountants at a quiet hotel in Markshire on a Sunday just before the Annual General Meeting, what’s the inference?”
“Dirty work,” said Martin promptly, and drained his glass.
“The only question is,” Stephen went on, “do we tackle Parsons now on what we’ve got or ought we to go back to London first and reconnoitre the Vanning end of the conspiracy?”
“One thing I can tell you,” answered Martin. “You won’t find Vanning if you do.”
“Eh?”
“There’s no such person—in the office of Vanning, Waldron and Smith, anyway.”
“How do you know?”
“I looked ’em up in the official list. You remember when I suggested he might be a stockbroker, you told me I could find out by looking at the list of members. I took your tip and then thought it would do no harm if I checked up on the accountants as well. And there wasn’t a Vanning in either of them. Not a solitary one. And so far as this crowd goes, the partners now are Waldron, Smith and some one called Cohen. I take it that Vanning has been gathered to his fathers and they keep the name on the door for old sake’s sake.”
“I see. Then why—Damn it all, Martin, it can’t be simply a coincidence!”
“Not on your life! That’d be a bit too thick. Tell you another thing. Parsons couldn’t give the hotel the name of his friend until he turned up. Reason—the blighter was travelling under an alias and Parsons didn’t know what it would be. And he had the cheek to take the name of his firm’s late senior partner. Pretty cool that, don’t you think?”
“Lord, I’d forgotten that!” Stephen lit a cigarette and reflected for a moment or two before he went on. “Let’s work this out properly,” he said at last. “What is our theory about the whole affair?”
“Parsons has been monkeying with the Gas Company’s accounts,” Martin began. “The clerk or whatnot sent down to audit them smells a rat.”
“Instead of showing him up,” Stephen chimed in, “he keeps the knowledge to himself—”
“—And uses it to do a spot of blackmailing on the side.”
“Which would explain the fact that Parsons has not been sleeping too well at nights lately.”
“You bet your life it would! Then just before the accounts are due to be passed, the chap from Vanning’s summons Parsons for a nice confidential little chat about how much he’s to cough up and so on.”
“They quarrel on that all-important point. I wonder, by the way, Martin, whet
her Parsons has been embezzling for some time?”
“And paying tribute to the blood-sucker in Gossip Lane? (Appropriate address that, by the way!) I shouldn’t be surprised. Anyhow, a point comes when he tells him that he can’t go on. No use trying to get blood out of a stone, you know.”
“Yes, I expect that’s just the sort of expression Parsons would use on that occasion.”
“Is it? Well, I dare say you know. No offence meant, and all that. Where are we? Yes—they quarrel, as you said just now. Vanning—we’ll have to call him that—goes up to bed first. Parsons comes up later feeling pretty murderous about him, sees the tray with the pot of tea outside what he thinks is his room—sorry I laughed at your idea when you suggested it the other day, Steve, but I see there is something in it now—”
“Being a bad sleeper, he has some drugs with him,” Stephen suggested. “For that matter, a man in his position might well have been contemplating suicide.”
“Right you are! It’s all working out beautifully. He says to himself: ‘Why shouldn’t this hellhound take the medicine instead of me?’ So he pops the stuff into the tea-pot, and goes to bed feeling that he’s made everything all serene so far as Vanning is concerned.”
“And next morning—”
“Good Lord, yes! Next morning he gets a really nasty one in the eye when he finds that the corpse has quietly got up and had his breakfast and mizzled off. Steve, I really believe we’ve got to the bottom of this!”
“I wonder,” said Stephen slowly. “Somehow, it looks almost too good to be true.”
Martin rubbed his hands together gleefully.
“Rot, it looks good because it is true. What’s the catch in it?”
“Well, there’s one thing. How do we know that Parsons had any of this particular dope with him?”
“He must have. That was what your guv’nor died of, wasn’t it?”
“But that’s begging the whole question!”
“I don’t see that. If he didn’t do it, who did? Can you answer that one?”